ExhibitionMarch 10, 2023
Celia Álvarez Muñoz: Breaking the Binding
From March 16 through August 13, 2023, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) will present the first museum retrospective of Texas-born artist Celia Álvarez Muñoz (b. 1937). Spanning forty years of her career, the exhibition features over 35 artworks––including six large-scale immersive installations, photographic series, and book projects––that highlight the artist’s playful, witty style, often characterized by her use of bilingual puns and mistranslation in text and image.
Organized by Isabel Casso, Assistant Curator at MCASD, and Dr. Kate Green, Chief Curator & Nancy E. Meinig Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at Philbrook Museum of Art, Celia Álvarez Muñoz: Breaking the Binding includes artist’s books, image-text art, mixed-media murals, and room-sized installations. Álvarez Muñoz’s works are motivated by her lived experiences on the United States-Mexico border, reflecting the distinct complexities of a bi-cultural and bi-lingual upbringing.
“As this survey reveals, the resulting body of work potently addresses universal themes of language and assimilation and engages in cultural recovery through images and words, through the first-person perspective of a Chicana of the Catholic borderlands. With this exhibition, the practice of Celia Álvarez Muñoz, beloved within Latinx circles for decades, finally receives its wider due”, said Kate Green, PhD.
This exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color publication by Santa Fe publishing non-profit Radius Books, and made available in May 2023.
Concurrently on view, at MCASD, Griselda Rosas: Yo te cuido is the artist’s first solo museum exhibition, presenting new textile drawings and sculptures that explore the layered histories of the San Diego-Tijuana region.
Organized by Isabel Casso, Assistant Curator at MCASD, and Dr. Kate Green, Chief Curator & Nancy E. Meinig Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at Philbrook Museum of Art, Celia Álvarez Muñoz: Breaking the Binding includes artist’s books, image-text art, mixed-media murals, and room-sized installations. Álvarez Muñoz’s works are motivated by her lived experiences on the United States-Mexico border, reflecting the distinct complexities of a bi-cultural and bi-lingual upbringing.
“As this survey reveals, the resulting body of work potently addresses universal themes of language and assimilation and engages in cultural recovery through images and words, through the first-person perspective of a Chicana of the Catholic borderlands. With this exhibition, the practice of Celia Álvarez Muñoz, beloved within Latinx circles for decades, finally receives its wider due”, said Kate Green, PhD.
This exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color publication by Santa Fe publishing non-profit Radius Books, and made available in May 2023.
Concurrently on view, at MCASD, Griselda Rosas: Yo te cuido is the artist’s first solo museum exhibition, presenting new textile drawings and sculptures that explore the layered histories of the San Diego-Tijuana region.
