CELIA ÁLVAREZ MUÑOZ: LOS BRILLANTES

March 28 - January 19,2025

From Ruby City: "Ruby City will present a solo exhibition devoted to the work of Celia Álvarez Muñoz (b. 1937, El Paso, TX; lives Arlington, TX) a conceptual, multi-media artist known for her diverse work focused on family stories, her bi-cultural background and upbringing on the Texas/Mexico border. In her Studio exhibition at Ruby City, Los Brillantes, Muñoz combines distinct bodies of work to create an installation that scales between the specificity of the city of San Antonio and its Latinx artists to the infinitude of the cosmos. The exhibition is comprised of a suite of 18 photographic portraits of artists from San Antonio, part of her 2002 series, Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personages, recently acquired by Linda Pace Foundation, Ruby City. The portraits focus on Latinx artists who have a significant regional and/or national reputation. Each is an active artist today or remained so throughout their lifetimes as several are now deceased. As with much of Muñoz’s work, she followed a wholly original approach to Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personages, utilizing a Holga, an inexpensive camera first produced in 1982, and well-known for the unintended distortions it produces such as light leaks and blur. Muñoz refers to the Holga as the “perfect tool,” for this series as it offered a unique, flexible, and unpredictable format to create both innovative and visually intriguing work. Her embrace of the then nascent digital technology enabled her to manipulate the images to make them appear as though film strips, giving them an active “in motion” quality. The photographs are balanced by selections from another series, Postales (c.1988), an installation of a paintings and street signs that suggests different neighborhoods. Originally shown at the Tyler Museum of Art in 1988, Muñoz, recontextualizes a selection from this series that represents San Antonio, and which incorporates an airbrushed painting of a house, text written by the artist on a scroll and city street signs suspended in the air, mimicking a local neighborhood intersection. Munoz’s incorporation of this work makes clear these artists’ connection to this city. A final component of the exhibition is an image of space overlaid with a newly revised poem written by the artist which declares the artists’ significance. In combination all three aspects of the exhibition present the artists as perpetually youthful, dynamic, a vital part of this city and worthy of recognition, here and beyond. Muñoz has a deep reverence for these artists (and this place) because she continually finds them symbiotically supportive and inspiring. “These artists are a strong, informed and politicized community,” as Muñoz often remarks. “They are important stars in our arts’ universe, los brillantes.” Celia Álvarez Muñoz: Los Brillantes will be on view March 28, 2024, through January 19, 2025, at Studio at Ruby City, inside Chris Park (111 Camp Street). An artist walk- through with Muñoz and Elyse A. Gonzales, Director of Ruby City, will take place on Saturday, March 30, 2024, from 2-3pm with a reception directly following from 3-5pm. The event is free and open to the public. About the Artist: Celia Álvarez Muñoz is a Mexican American conceptual multimedia artist who is known for her photography, painting, installations, and public art, as well as for her writing. Born in El Paso, Texas, Muñoz's work addresses the dichotomy of living between two cultures. Common themes in her practice include Catholicism, Mexican American experience, the past versus the present and English versus Spanish language. The artist incorporates themes of family and "communal memories" in her pieces. 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. Muñoz has received numerous awards, including two National Endowment for the Arts grants (1988, 1991) and the Art League Houston Lifetime Achievement Award in the Visual Arts. She was among the first cohort to receive the landmark Latinx Artist Fellowship award and was named 2-D Artist of 2022 by the Texas Commission for the Arts. Her work has been exhibited widely in group exhibitions, such as the Whitney Biennial (1991), and in solo presentations at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (1991); Dallas Museum of Art (1991); Capp Street Project, San Francisco (1994); and the University of Texas at Arlington (2002). Her work has been acquired by public collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Muñoz’s work was included in Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985, among other important traveling exhibitions. A career retrospective is currently traveling and was initiated at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and is slated to travel to the University Museum at New Mexico State University, and the Philbrook Museum of Art. She is represented by Ruiz-Healy Galleries in San Antonio and New York City."

Reception: March 30, 2024 | 3-5 pm

Ruby City 150 Camp St
San Antonio, Texas 78204
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