JUAN MUÑOZ'S WORKS FOR RADIO
Building for Music
Curated by Juan Muñoz
From 1992 to 2001, Juan Muñoz carried out a series of works using materials that we would not expect to find in the hands of a sculptor: the voice, music, sound. Muñoz conceived and made these works specifically for radio so that they would circulate through the airwaves at a particular moment of the day and reach listeners who had tuned in, either by choice or by chance. Radio Web MACBA is going back to these radio works with the aim of bringing them to a wider audience and having them recognised as an additional element of the artist’s work along with the sculpture and writing he carried out simultaneously and without a break, and in order to go beyond the physical space that Juan Muñoz occupies within the MACBA Collection.
“Building for Music” (1993), “A Man in a Room Gambling” (1992), “Will it Be a Likeness”? (1996) and “A Registered Patent” (2001-2002) use sound, the voice and music as their basic raw materials. They all have something in common – an element that was of special interest to the artist: they had to be broadcast on public radio stations.
The first program, “Building for Music” was the result of a collaboration with the composer Alberto Iglesias, who had similar interests to Juan Muñoz and an unquenchable curiosity that led him to offer knowledge and solutions beyond those strictly concerned with music composition. “Building for Music” was Muñoz’s response to an invitation to participate in Sonsbeek 93, an art exhibition held in the park in the Dutch city of Arnhem, which is unfortunately known for the battle that took place there at the end of the end of World War II. From the start, it was conceived as a radio broadcast combining two kinds of programs: the literature broadcasts that have abounded on European public radio on one hand, and contemporary music programs on the other.
A Registered Patent: A Drummer inside a Rotating Box
Muñoz went back to patents he had found during the days he'd spent reading at the New York Public Library. The texts of the patents talk about materials and construction techniques and forms that can prevent echo inside built spaces.
Will it Be a Likeness
Of all the works produced by Muñoz, "Will it Be a Likeness" is probably the most theatrical and less musical.
A Man in a Room, Gambling
This program deals with card tricks, which are old favorites on magicians’ repertoires but also used on the streets.