A pioneer in the fields of conceptual and media art, Antoni Muntadas’s practice includes performance, video, photography, multimedia installations, publications, web-based projects, and public art. Incorporating in-depth research and astute readings of cultural situations, his incisive works have addressed ideas such as the relationship between public and private, the role of the media in transmitting ideas and information, and the dynamics of official architecture and other social frameworks. From early works of the 1970s that utilized the senses, to his 1981 manifesto that demanded audiences consider “What are we looking at?,” to his ongoing series On Translation, which wrestles with cultural interpretation, Muntadas has created a vast body of work that frames a discourse on the visible and invisible systems of power in a society dominated by the spectacles of mass media, hyper-consumption, and constantly evolving technologies.
Though he began his career as a painter, Muntadas started experimenting with politically motivated actions in the early 1970s. Since that time he has exhibited widely, in addition to his career as a professor and seminar director at such notable institutions as the National School of Fine Arts, Paris; the San Francisco Art Institute; Cooper Union, New York; the University of São Paulo; and the University of Buenos Aires. He currently holds the position of Professor of the Practice at the MIT program in Art, Culture and Technology/Department of Architecture in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and of Visiting Professor at the IUAV in Venice, Italy. He has participated in many international exhibitions, including documenta 5 and X; the Venice Biennale (1976, 2005); the Whitney Biennial, New York (1991); and biennials in São Paulo, Lyon, Taipei, Gwangju, and Havana. He has been the recipient of numerous prestigious prizes including the 2009 Velázquez Prize for the Plastic Arts awarded by the Ministry of Culture of Spain. Muntadas lives in New York and Barcelona.
