Muntadas
Entre/Between
November 9, 2013–February 10, 2014
Vancouver Art Gallery
750 Hornby Street
Vancouver BC V6Z 2H7
Canada
Internationally renowned conceptual and media artist Muntadas presented at the Vancouver Art Gallery
Vancouver Art Gallery presents a large-scale exhibition of work by Muntadas, a pioneer in the field of conceptual and media art. Opening on November 8, Muntadas: Entre/Between surveys the artist’s groundbreaking and prolific career that spans four decades. The artist’s extensive practice includes performance art, video, photography, multi-media, installations, publications, web-based projects and public art.
“This is a thoughtful look at an influential international artist whose work first connected to Vancouver in the 1970s,” said the Gallery’s Director Kathleen S. Bartels. “We are excited to bring this exhibition to Vancouver, where Muntadas’ conceptually based work parallels the approaches of artists from this region.”
The Gallery’s Chief Curator/Associate Director Daina Augaitis was invited by the artist and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid to curate this major career survey. The exhibition opened to great acclaim at the Reina Sofía—one of Europe’s most prestigious contemporary art museums—in November of 2011 with an official ceremony attended by Queen Sophia of Spain before travelling to the Museu Gulbenkian in Lisbon and the Jeu de Paume in Paris. The presentation at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which is the final and only North American stop for this exhibition, focuses on a selection of key works that manifest Muntadas’ ongoing investigation of the complex political and cultural issues of our time.
The exhibition title Entre/Between refers to inbetweeness, a deliberate strategy used by Muntadas to avoid easy solutions in order to reveal the intricate connections that shape contemporary life. The exhibition is organized using constellations to thematically link works from different periods of the artist’s production. Nine constellations articulate the broad field of subjects explored by Muntadas: Microspaces, Media Landscape, Spheres of Power, Domain of Fear, Places of Spectacle, Communal Spaces, The Archive, Field of Translation and Systems of Art.
Incorporating in-depth research and astute readings of cultural situations, Muntadas’ incisive works have addressed ideas such as the relationship between public and private, the role of the media in transmitting ideas and information, and the dynamics of official architecture and other social frameworks. From the early works in the 1970s that utilized the senses to his 1981 manifesto that demanded audiences to consider “What are we looking at?”, to his ongoing series “On Translation” that wrestles with cultural interpretation, Muntadas has created a vast body of work that comments on the visible and invisible systems of power in a society dominated by the spectacles of mass media, hyperconsumption and constantly evolving technologies.
“Since many of the artist’s projects take the form of time and site-specific actions, Muntadas: Entre/Between includes a number of large-scale photomurals to represent these performance-based public art activities,” said Daina Augaitis. “This exhibition also includes Personal/Public Information, which was created specifically for Muntadas’ solo exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1979.”
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated 302-page catalogue with essays by critics and art historians, including Emily Apter, Marc Augé, Raymond Bellour, Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, Ina Blom, Eugeni Bonet, Iris Dressler, Anne-Marie Duguet, Marcelo Expósito, Simón Marchán Fiz, Gerald Raunig, Judith Revel, Octavi Rofes, Valentin Roma, Lise Ott, Sven Spieker, Mary Anne Staniszewski, Brian Wallis, as well as the exhibition curator Daina Augaitis.
Muntadas: Entre/Between is organized by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in collaboration with the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Media Information
Debra Zhou, Communications Specialist
T +604 662 4722 / M +604 671 2358 / dzhou [at] vanartgallery.bc.ca
About the Vancouver Art Gallery
The Vancouver Art Gallery is a not-for-profit organization supported by its members, individual donors, corporate funders, foundations, the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts. We thank everyone for their continuing generosity.
For more information please visit www.vanartgallery.bc.ca.
