Juan Muñoz

"The spectacular international success of the Spanish sculptor Juan Muänoz has tended to encourage a critical framing of the artist's work within narratives of global postmodernist innovation. This book, the first in-depth study of the central idea of silence in Muänoz's work, aims to position him more clearly within his historical moment, by reading his work against the silences of Spanish politics and culture in post-Civil War Spain. Drawing on a wealth of documents, beginning with Muänoz's student notebooks, the book shows how silence and memory defined and shaped his art. A range of methodologies from within Muänoz's own intellectual horizon is applied to explore a progression from the implied silences of his sculptural installations to the literal sounds and silences of his first radio piece. Muänoz's silencing strategies are analysed across different mediums, both visual and verbal, to show how his art probes and reanimates the uncanny memory of Spain's traumatic past"--