Celia Álvarez Muñoz (born 1937) is a
Chicana
Chicano (masculine form) or Chicana (feminine form) is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans that emerged from the Chicano Movement.
In the 1960s, ''Chicano'' was widely reclaimed among Hispanics in the building of a movement toward politic ...
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 inc ...
conceptual
Chicana artist and photographer based in
Arlington, Texas
Arlington is a city in Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, Texas, United States. It is part of the Mid-Cities region of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan statistical area, and is a principal c ...
.
Early life and education
Álvarez Muñoz was born in
El Paso, Texas
El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...
, 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 a
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 admin ...
at
North Texas State University
The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public university, public research university located in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Its main campus is in Denton, Texas, Denton, with a satellite campus in Frisco, Texas, Frisco. It serves as the ...
in
Denton, Texas
Denton is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Denton County, Texas, Denton County. With a population of 139,869 as of 2020, it is the List of cities in Texas by population, 20th-most populous city in Texas, the List of Un ...
.
Work
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.
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. ...
, 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.
In 2024, her work is included in ''Xican-a.o.x. Body'' a comprehensive group exhibition expanding on the Chicano experience and artistic practice as part of major art historical movements. The show included works from 1960s to the present and traveled from the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture at
Riverside Art Museum
Riverside Art Museum is an art museum in the historic Mission Inn District of Riverside, California. The museum is a non-profit organization which focuses on addressing social issues and offers art classes as well as other events in order to in ...
, California, to the
Pérez Art Museum Miami
Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Maurice A. Ferré Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Cent ...
, Florida. The show was curated by Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Marissa Del Toro, and Gilbert Vicario with accompanying catalog by The Chicago University Press.
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 Wort ...
* 1989 –
New Langton Arts,
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
* 1989 – Bridge Center for Contemporary Art, El Paso, Texas
* 1994 – "A Brand New Ball Game",
Capp Street Project, 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 A ...
Selected group exhibitions
Álvarez Muñoz has exhibited at;
* 1991 –
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...
of American Art,
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
* 1992 –
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) is an art museum in La Jolla
La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood in San Diego, California, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the ...
* 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 buildin ...
, 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) is a museum featuring Mexico, Mexican and Chicano art and culture. It is located in Harrison Park in the Lower West Side, Chicago, Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, Chicago, Illinois. The museum ...
, 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)
* 2024 – ''Xican-a.o.x. Body'',
Pérez Art Museum Miami
Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Maurice A. Ferré Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Cent ...
, Florida
References
Further reading
* Roberto Tejada, ''Celia Alvarez Muñoz,'' University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
* Fajardo-Hill, Cecilia; Del Toro, Marissa; Vicario, Gilbert; Chavez, Mike; Chavoya, C. Ondine; Salseda, Rose; Valencia, Joseph Daniel; Villaseñor Black, Charlene; Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, eds. (2024). ''Xican-a.o.x. body''. New York, NY : Munich, Germany: American Federation of Arts ; Hirmer Publishers. .
OCLC
OCLC, Inc. See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was founded in 1967 as the ...
1373831827
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
American women conceptual artists
University of North Texas alumni
20th-century American artists
20th-century American women photographers
20th-century American photographers
21st-century American women photographers
21st-century American photographers