The exhibition of media and conceptual artist Antoni Muntadas arrives at Vancouver Art Gallery.

Considered one of the pioneers of media art and conceptual art in Spain, for over four decades Antoni Muntadas (Barcelona, 1942) has been creating projects that foment critical reflection about key issues in the configuration of contemporary experience. His aim is to detect and decode the control and power mechanisms through which hegemonic ways of seeing are built, exploring the decisive role played by the mass media in this process.

In his works, which always have a clear processual dimension and often make a direct call for viewer participation, Muntadas uses a number of media, languages and discursive strategies, from interventions in public space to video and photography, from the publication of printed material to the use of Internet and the new digital tools, from multimedia installations to the organization of multidisciplinary, collaborative research projects.

Throughout his career, Antoni Muntadas, who conceives of his works as "artefacts" (in the anthropological sense of the term, i.e. things that can be viewed in different ways depending on the context and the moment they are presented), has addressed topics such as the changing relationship between the public and the private, the naturalization of the logic of consumerism, the cultural homogenization processes imposed by globalization, the use of architecture as a tool for legitimating political and economic power, the importance of the mass media in the expansion of financial capitalism, the functioning of the artistic ecosystem or the exploitation of the fear of the "other" as a strategy for social control.

The Vancouver Art Gallery's Chief Curator/Associate Director Daina Augaitis was invited by the artist and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid to curate this major exhibition. The exhibition opened to great acclaim at the Reina Sofía —one of Europe's most prestigious contemporary art museums— in November of 2011 with an official ceremony attended by Queen Sophia of Spain before travelling to the Museu Gulbenkian in Lisbon and the Jeu de Paume in Paris. The Gallery is hosting the final presentation of this important international exhibition.

Gallery hours: Monday-Sunday, from 10 am to 5 pm; Tuesdays until 9 pm.

Venue

Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby Street, Vancouver, BC V6Z 2H7

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Phone

604-662-4700

More information

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