Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Chuck Ramirez, 2002, Digital Holgas, 14 x 30 in, 35.6 x 76.2 cm. Linda Pace Foundation Collection, Ruby City, San Antonio, Texas. © Celia Álvarez Muñoz. Courtesy of Ruiz-Healy Art, San Antonio, TX
Celia Álvarez Muñoz: Los Brillantes [The Brilliant Ones]
On view March 28, 2024- January 19, 2025
For 44 years Celia Álvarez Muñoz (b. 1937, El Paso, TX; lives Arlington, TX) has been making conceptually driven works of art. Incorporating a wide range of mediums including texts written by the artist, Munoz’s works reflect family stories and her bi-cultural background, having grown up on the Texas border. Additionally, she is known for collaborating with, and highlighting, the experiences [and historical demographic dynamics of populations that have changed over time by natural resources or politics.
Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Vincent Valdez, 2002, Digital Holgas, 14 x 30 in, 35.6 x 76.2 cm, Edition of 5, San Antonio, TX, Linda Pace Foundation Collection, Ruby City, San Antonio, Texas. © Celia Álvarez Muñoz. Courtesy of Ruiz-Healy Art, San Antonio, TX
In her exhibition, Los Brillantes [The Brilliant Ones] at Studio at Ruby City, Muñoz combines two bodies of work from the past in an installation that scales between the specificity of the city of San Antonio and its Latinx artists to the infinitude of the cosmos. The exhibition comprises a suite of 18 photographic portraits of Latinx artists from San Antonio, part of her 2002 series, Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personages, recently acquired by Linda Pace Foundation, Ruby City. It is balanced by part of Postales (c. 1988), an installation of paintings and street signs that suggests local neighborhoods, grounding the pictured artists as ever youthful, determined and part of this city. Backdrop for these works is an image of space complemented by a newly revised poem written by the artist. Muñoz has a deep reverence for these artists (and this place) because she continually finds them symbiotically supportive and inspiring. “These artists are a strong, informed and politicized community,” as Muñoz often remarks. “They are important,” she declares, “stars in our arts’ universe, los brillantes.”
