An important sculpture by the late Spanish artist Juan Muñoz is now view at the Contemporary Austin’s 14-acre Laguna Gloria sculpture park, museum officials announced today.
Muñoz’s “Last Conversation Piece” is on long-term loan from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution.
“The museum is thrilled to bring ‘Last Conversation Piece’ to Austin,” said Margie Rine, Interim Director of the Contemporary. “This compelling and evocative work by the late contemporary sculptor Juan Muñoz will engage our audiences through its surprising forms and open-ended narrative. We are grateful to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden for facilitating the ongoing loan of this important work.”
“Last Conversation Piece” features five slightly smaller than life-size cast bronze figures with bag-like lower bodies. Three of the gesturing figures are huddled together as if in conversation; two others gather nearby.
Part of a series Muñoz made beginning in 1991 continued until his death in 2001, the sculpture is sited on the oval lawn just inside the entrance gate to the Laguna Gloria grounds.
Known for his imaginatively figurative sculptural installations, Muñoz was a self-described “storyteller.” His work is in the collections of as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and the Tate Modern, among other museum.
Juan Muñoz, Last Conversation Piece (detail), 1994–1995. Installation view, The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria, Austin, Texas, 2019. Collection of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Museum Purchase, 1995. Artwork ©Juan Muñoz. Photograph by Brian Fitzsimmons.
