Celia Álvarez Muñoz (born 1937) is a
Chicana mixed-media
In visual art, mixed media describes artwork in which more than one medium or material has been employed.
Assemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different media. Materials used to create mixed media art incl ...
conceptual artist and photographer based in
Arlington, Texas.
Early life and education
Álvarez Muñoz was born in
El Paso
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the s ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
to Enriqueta Limón Alvarez and Francisco Pompa Alvarez.
She grew up in the
Chihuahuita historical neighborhood of El Paso. Prior to becoming an artist, Álvarez Muñoz worked as a fashion illustrator and an elementary school art educator.
She decided to commit to creating art in the 1970s, by 1977 she enrolled in graduate school to study art.
She earned her
Masters of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.)
is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...
at
North Texas State University
The University of North Texas (UNT) is a Public university, public research university in Denton, Texas. It was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private Normal school, teachers college in 1890 and was formally adopted by the state 11 y ...
,
Denton.
Drawing on her experiences living near the US-Mexico border, Álvarez Muñoz's work addresses the tension between linguistic, cultural, and political worlds.
She often incorporates themes of family and "communal memories" in her work. She uses text and images in her work to explore the ambiguous signs and signifiers where cultures meet, and to communicate stories of American history, culture, and society. She has exhibited her work in museums and galleries in the U.S. and abroad, and is included in the collection of the
Museum of New Mexico The Museum of New Mexico is a collection of museums, historic sites, and archaeological services governed by the State of New Mexico. It currently consists of six divisions : the Palace of the Governors state history museum, the New Mexico Museum o ...
. Her work has been written about by art historians,
Lucy Lippard
Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. S ...
, Benito Huerta, and others. In Roberto Tejada's monograph on Muñoz, he includes a teaching guide (Vol. 3) using principles from her work in the teaching of multicultural art, and border issues.
Selected solo exhibitions
* 1988 – The Lannan Museum,
Lake Worth, Florida
Lake Worth Beach, previously named Lake Worth, is a city in east-central Palm Beach County, Florida, United States, located about north of Miami. The city's name is derived from the body of water along its eastern border known as the Lake Worth ...
* 1989 –
New Langton Arts,
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
* 1989 – Bridge Center for Contemporary Art, El Paso, Texas
* 1994 – "A Brand New Ball Game",
Capp Street Project
Capp Street Project is an artist residency program that was originally located at 65 Capp Street in San Francisco, California. CSP was established as a program to nurture experimental art making in 1983 with the first visual arts residency in the ...
, San Francisco
* 1991– "Concentrations 26: Celia Alvarez Munoz, Abriendo Tierra/Breaking Ground",
Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...
Selected group exhibitions
Álvarez Muñoz has exhibited at;
* 1991 –
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...
of American Art,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
* 1992 –
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (or MCASD), in San Diego, California, US, is an art museum focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present.
Mission
The stated mission of ...
* 2002 – "Stories Your Mother Never Told You" (traveling retrospective), Blue Star ArtSpace,
El Paso Museum of Art
Founded in 1959, The El Paso Museum of Art (EPMA) is located in downtown El Paso, Texas. First accredited in 1972, it is the only accredited art museum within a 250-mile radius and serves approximately 100,000 visitors per year. A new building ...
, and
Mexic-Arte Museum
* 2006–2007 – "Frontera 450+", Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas
* 2009 – "Chicana Badgirls: Las Hociconas''",'' 516 ARTS, Albuquerque, New Mexico
* 2009 – "Rastros y Crónicas: Mujerez de Juarez",
National Museum of Mexican Art
The National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA), formerly known as the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, is a museum featuring Mexican, Latino, and Chicano art and culture. It is located in Harrison Park in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois ...
, Chicago, Illinois
* 2012 – "Artifactual Realities",
Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas
* 2014 – "Unbound: Contemporary Art After Frida Kahlo",
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (MCA)
References
Further reading
* Roberto Tejada, ''Celia Alvarez Muñoz,'' University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alvarez Munoz, Celia
1937 births
Living people
Artists from El Paso, Texas
People from Arlington, Texas
American artists of Mexican descent
American conceptual artists
Women conceptual artists
University of North Texas alumni
20th-century American artists
21st-century American artists
Hispanic and Latino American artists
20th-century American women photographers
20th-century American photographers
21st-century American women photographers
21st-century American photographers