Celia Álvarez Muñoz: Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personalities: San Antonio

September 22 - October 22, 2022
  • CELIA ÁLVAREZ MUÑOZ: SEMEJANTES PERSONAJES/SIGNIFICANT PERSONALITIES

  • Ruiz-Healy Art is pleased to present Celia Álvarez Muñoz: Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personalities in conjunction with FOTOSEPTIEMBRE USA International Photography Festival. The exhibition will be a recreation of her 2002 exhibition at Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX which features a selection of forty-one portraits of San Antonio Latinx artists. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. In 2021, Álvarez Muñoz was awarded the Latinx Artist Fellowship, a groundbreaking initiative that recognizes 15 of the most compelling Latinx visual artists working in the United States today.

    • Celia Álvarez Muñoz Ethel Shipton, 2002 Digital Holgas 14 x 30 in 76.2 x 76.2 cm Edition of 5
      Celia Álvarez Muñoz
      Ethel Shipton, 2002
      Digital Holgas
      14 x 30 in
      76.2 x 76.2 cm
      Edition of 5
    • Celia Álvarez Muñoz Vincent Valdez, 2002 Digital Holgas 14 x 30 in 35.6 x 76.2 cm Edition of 5
      Celia Álvarez Muñoz
      Vincent Valdez, 2002
      Digital Holgas
      14 x 30 in
      35.6 x 76.2 cm
      Edition of 5
    • Celia Álvarez Muñoz Terry Ybanez, 2002 Digital Holgas 14 x 30 in 35.6 x 76.2 cm Edition of 5
      Celia Álvarez Muñoz
      Terry Ybanez, 2002
      Digital Holgas
      14 x 30 in
      35.6 x 76.2 cm
      Edition of 5
    • Celia Álvarez Muñoz Leticia Huerta, 2002 Digital Holgas 14 x 30 in 35.6 x 76.2 cm Edition of 5
      Celia Álvarez Muñoz
      Leticia Huerta, 2002
      Digital Holgas
      14 x 30 in
      35.6 x 76.2 cm
      Edition of 5
  • “The subject of the installation is a collection of forty-one portraits of San Antonio’s Latino visual artists. A vibrant community, like no other in Texas! I have come to know and appreciate it from my frequency to that city while working on several public art projects. San Antonio is a city of dichotomy that retains a small town historical ambiance within progressive economic expansion. These characteristics, I find well manifested in the work and personalities of this group of fellow artists."

     

    - Celia Álvarez Muñoz

    • Celia Álvarez Muñoz Cesar Augosto Martinez, 2002 Digital Holgas 14 x 34 in 35.6 x 86.4 cm Edition of 5
      Celia Álvarez Muñoz
      Cesar Augosto Martinez, 2002
      Digital Holgas
      14 x 34 in
      35.6 x 86.4 cm
      Edition of 5
    • Celia Álvarez Muñoz Haydee Victoria Suescum, 2002 Digital Holgas 14 x 32 in 35.6 x 81.3 cm Edition of 5
      Celia Álvarez Muñoz
      Haydee Victoria Suescum, 2002
      Digital Holgas
      14 x 32 in
      35.6 x 81.3 cm
      Edition of 5
    • Celia Álvarez Muñoz Chuck Ramirez, 2002 Digital Holgas 14 x 30 in 35.6 x 76.2 cm Edition of 5
      Celia Álvarez Muñoz
      Chuck Ramirez, 2002
      Digital Holgas
      14 x 30 in
      35.6 x 76.2 cm
      Edition of 5
    • Celia Álvarez Muñoz Mel Casas, 2002 Digital Holgas 14 x 35 in 35.6 x 88.9 cm Edition of 5
      Celia Álvarez Muñoz
      Mel Casas, 2002
      Digital Holgas
      14 x 35 in
      35.6 x 88.9 cm
      Edition of 5
  • “In artistic fashion I experiment in a courtship between old and new technology. The Holga’s unique, flexible, and unpredictable format, for me, was the perfect tool. It allowed me to cease a moment. Kin to an imperfect edited movie film strip, it still was open for inspection once it started a digital dialogue."

     

    - Celia Álvarez Muñoz

  • Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Anita Valencia, Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personages Series, 2002

    Celia Álvarez Muñoz

    Anita Valencia, Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personages Series, 2002
    Digital Holgas
    30 x 14 in
    76.2 x 35.6 cm
    1/5
  • Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Jesse Amado, Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personages Series, 2002

    Celia Álvarez Muñoz

    Jesse Amado, Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personages Series, 2002
    Digital Holgas
    33 x 14 in
    81.3 x 35.6 cm
    1/5
  • “Endeared to the San Antonio community and having a penchant for the unexpected in the creative process, I opted to “stop-action” on four generations of artists, before time changed, or we change and time stays. Five, have since left us; Mel Casas, Alberto Mijangos and Chuck Ramirez, Alex de Leon, and Adan Hernandez. The project remains open.”

     

    - Celia Álvarez Muñoz

  • Celia Álvarez Muñoz is a Mexican American conceptual multimedia artist who is known for her photography, painting, installations, and public...
    Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Self-Portrait, 2002, Digital Holgas

    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. She received a BA in Art & Art Education at The University of Texas, El Paso, and holds an MFA from North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) in Denton. Born in El Paso, Texas, Álvarez 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. 

     

    Her work has been exhibited widely in group exhibitions, such as the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY, and in solo presentations at the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Capp Street Project, San Francisco, CA; and the University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX. A career retrospective is scheduled for 2023 at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. 

     

    Her work has been acquired by public collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX. Muñoz's work was included in the invitational traveling exhibition Our Journeys/Our Stories: Portraits of Latino Achievement by the Smithsonian Institution and Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985, among other exhibits.