Juan Muñoz
Listening Figure
1991
patinated bronze
135 x 74 x 73 cm
image: Van Abbemuseum
They walk with you, sometimes for a moment, sometimes for years, inserting in, inserting out, joining, disappearing, communicating with something that you are open to at that moment.
Juan Muñoz joins me again; he is an old acquaintance. His hushed but breathing work ‘Two Figures and Two Trees’ made a deep impression at Park Middelheim in Antwerp 1993. After the recognition, unknown to me at the time, he stuck around for ten years, before quietly leaving, even literally. Now he reappears.
I know nothing about Muñoz, we stroll in images, not words. The book I bought thirty years ago is a Spanish edition, his motivations are unknown to me. I don't seem to need to read anything about it, which surprises me now because it is an unexpected observation: all these years I’ve only been watching.
The title of the publication is ‘mónologos y dialogos’. The translation may be obvious and with it the reason why the work appeals to me.
It strikes me that I can make out many Muñoz / van Pinxteren duos, this too is an unexpected observation - and an ode to intuition, which I was not aware of before this question was put to me.
Karin van Pinxteren, 2024
Karin van Pinxteren (NL)
Trust
2012-2018
wood, text, cardboard, lacquer
62 x 35 x 3 cm
photo: Peter Cox
karinvanpinxteren.com
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