LIBRAIRIE

Widely regarded as one of the leading sculptors of the last twenty years, Juan Munoz came to prominence in the mid-1980s, when he was at the vanguard of a return to the human form. Munoz's figures, however, are not the usual stuff of classical sculpture. Located in architectural settings, they may be seated on benches, on plinths or halfway up a wall. Moreover, although naturalistic in execution, they are less than life-size, so that when viewed from a distance they appear to scale but when viewed from close-up they appear to be still distanced from the viewer, a favourite optical device. 

Accompanying the first retrospective exhibition of Munoz's work in the UK, this book will not concentrate solely on sculpture and installation but will also include the artist's drawings, performance and sound works, and explore the connections between his activities in these varying media. With extensive illustrations and essays by leading international crtitics, it will also feature a previously unpublished lecture by Munoz and transcriptions of performance texts. The essays will be interspersed with facsimile pages from Munoz's notebooks.

If in his sadly curtailed career Munoz succeeded in making the human figure once more of vital concern, he also relocated it, through his unique vision and what he called his sleight-of-hand, to a place at once familiar and strange.

With essays by Alex Potts, Manuela Mena and Michael Wood, as well as an interview with Munoz by James Lingwood, and an extract from Munoz's obituary by Richard Serra.