Protographs, Óscar Muñoz

On December 7 the Museo de Arte del Banco de la República in Bogota inaugurated one of the most comprehensive retrospectives by Colombian artist Óscar Muñoz. Entitled Protographs, the exhibition presents a vast repertoire of the most emblematic works by this artist. They are around 70 pieces created during 40 years of artistic experimentation with several graphic methods, drawing, sculpture, installation, video, and photography. Additionally, the works Sedimentaciones (Sedimentations) and Horizonte (Horizon) will also be on display. These two works were created by Muñoz specifically for this exhibition. Curated by José Roca and María Wills, Protographs is the first ever retrospective by Oscar Muñoz to be presented in Colombia. It will remain open to the public in Bogota until March 19, 2012. The exhibition will then travel to the Museo de Antioquia in Medellin and to the Museo deArte Latinoamericano (MALBA) in Buenos Aires. Protographs aims at showcasing the relationship between Muñoz and the photographic technique, and the way in which the artist incorporates photography and combines it with other materials-often associated with water, air, and fire. But the exhibition does not solely center on the matter of using photography as a formal method, as it also alludes to the way in which Muñoz uses photography to address the importance of memory in connection to an individual or collective identity. In this retrospective by Muñoz, elements such as light and time become part of an inquiry on that which at the end becomes an image. After choosing the subject and freezing an instant in time, the process of fixing the image on a support becomes very important-and it also represents the step with which Muñoz initiates a dialog. In works like Cortinas de Baño (Shower Curtains, 1985-1989) or Narciso (Narcissus), Muñoz demonstrates that "it is possible to establish a distance between the image of the represented subject and the support that contains it. "This distance-the moment in between two states-is the thing that brings us closer to a first moment, a proto-moment¿ to the Protographs.