Antoni Muntadas was born in Barcelona in 1942 and has lived in New York since 1971. Through his works, he addresses social, political, and communication issues, such as the relationship between public and private spaces within social frameworks. He investigates channels of information and how they may be used to censor or disseminate ideas. His projects are presented in various media, including photography, video, publications, the Internet, installations, and urban interventions.
Muntadas has taught and directed seminars at diverse institutions across Europe and the United States, including the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, the Fine Arts Schools in Bordeaux and Grenoble, the University of California in San Diego, the San Francisco Art Institute, the Cooper Union in New York, the University of São Paulo, and the University of Buenos Aires. He has also been invited as a resident artist and consulting advisor at research and educational centers, such as the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, the Banff Centre in Alberta, Arteleku in San Sebastián, the National Studio for Contemporary Arts Le Fresnoy, and the University of Western Sydney. Additionally, Muntadas served as a visiting professor at the Visual Arts Program in the School of Architecture at MIT in Cambridge from 1977 to 2014. He is currently teaching at the Università IUAV in Venice.
Muntadas has delivered conferences and seminars at institutions in Asia and Australia during 2023, including the School of Creative Media (Hong Kong), the Vietnam National Institute of Culture and Arts Studies (VICAS, Hanoi), the Centre of Visual Arts (University of Melbourne), and the School of Art & Design (University of New South Wales, Sydney). In the same year, he participated as a visiting professor in the program «La construction de la Peur / Media Architecture Projects», organized in collaboration with the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Centre Pompidou (Paris).
Muntadas has received numerous awards and grants, including those from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, Ars Electronica in Linz, and the Laser d’Or in Locarno. In 1977, he was awarded a scholarship for artistic creation by the Juan March Foundation. He has also received the Premi Nacional d’Arts Plàstiques from the Catalan Government and Spain’s National Award for Plastic Arts in 2005. Among his most recent honors is the Velázquez Award for Plastic Arts (2009), granted by the Spanish Ministry of Culture.
His work has been exhibited in numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Berkeley Art Museum in California, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires, the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro, and the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. He has also participated in prominent international events, such as the VI and X editions of Documenta Kassel (1977, 1997), the Whitney Biennial of American Art (1991), the 51st Biennale di Venezia (2005), and other biennials in São Paulo, Lyon, Taipei, Gwangju, and Havana.
Subsequent to «On Translation: I Giardini», displayed at the Spanish Pavilion in the 51st Biennale di Venezia, his recent solo exhibitions include «Protokolle» at Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, «Muntadas. Proyectos Urbanos (2002/2005) ... Hacia Sevilla 2008» at the Centro de las Artes de Sevilla, and «Muntadas. Histoires du couteau at Le Creux de l’Enfer», Centre d’art contemporain, Thiers.
In 2010, he presented his project «On Translation: Açik Radyo, Myths and Stereotypes», supported by the program «Lives and Works in Istanbul», at the Istanbul Modern Museum. That same year, Muntadas exhibited «Informação-Espaço-Controle» at Estação Pinacoteca in São Paulo, Brazil, and «About Academia» at The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. This exhibition traveled to the Arizona State University Museum and the American Academy in Rome, Italy. In 2011, his project «Media Sites / Media Monuments: Budapest» is part of the 12th Istanbul Biennial. «Muntadas: Entre/Between» was held at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid from November 2011 to March 2012. It was subsequently exhibited at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, Portugal, and later shown at the Jeu de Paume in Paris and the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2013.
Recently, his work has been shown at Kent Fine Art, New York; Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venice; Joan Prats Gallery, Barcelona; Moisés Pérez de Albéniz Gallery, Madrid; and the MuCEM–Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France. In 2015, he was invited by the 72nd Venice Film Festival to present «Dérive Veneziane», a video projection dedicated to the city of Venice. In 2016, Muntadas continued his «About Academia» project (initiated in 2011), resulting in two exhibitions: «Activating Artifacts: About Academia», at De Appel in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA.
In January 2017, he held a solo exhibition titled «Palabras, Palabras...» at Moisés Pérez de Albéniz Gallery in Madrid, followed by another in October at OCAT in Shanghai, where he presented «Videoworks». Since 2011, he has been working on the «Asian Protocols» project. The first phase was presented at the Total Museum in Seoul, Korea, in 2014; the second at 3331 Arts Chiyoda in Tokyo, Japan, in 2016; and the third at the Three Shadows Photography Art Center in Beijing, China, in 2018.
In 2018, he exhibited «Muntadas. Estratexias do desprazamento» at the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (CGAC) in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The exhibition «Muntadas: Espectáculo / Poder / Mass Media» was held at the Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art gallery in Lisbon, Portugal. That same year, the Joan Prats Gallery in Barcelona hosted «Edicions II», showcasing Muntadas' graphic works from 2003 to the present. He also participated in the exhibition «Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1975-1995», held at the MIT List Visual Arts Center in Massachusetts, which later traveled to the Sculpture Center in Long Island City, New York. In 2019, he exhibited «Mauri/Muntadas» alongside Fabio Mauri's works at Galleria Michela Rizzo in Venice.
In 2020, he presented «Muntadas: Interconnessioni» at the MAMbo in Bologna, Italy, an exhibition that originated at Artium in Vitoria, Spain, under the title «Muntadas: Elkarrekiko Loturak, Interconexiones, Interconnessioni». That same year, he reprised «Words, Words...» at the Luisa Strina Gallery in São Paulo. In 2021, Muntadas unveiled «La Ciudad Vacía» (2019-2021), a project developed for the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao. This work examines the historical development of Bilbao's urbanism as a starting point for a broader exploration of public space and architecture.
During 2022 and 2023, he focused on two solo exhibitions. At Ateneo de Manila (Philippines), he presented «Exercises on Past and Present Memories», revisiting the colonial history and shared memory between Spain and the Philippines. This itinerant project was also shown at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (CAAC) in Seville, Spain. Meanwhile, in Granada, Spain, he presented a new iteration of the «About Academia» project (initiated in 2011 and continued in 2017) at the Sala del Palacio de la Madraza at the University of Granada and the Crucero del Hospital Real. In 2022, the project «On Translation: Açik Radyo» was included in the 17th Istanbul Biennial, with a 25-episode program broadcast on a local independent radio station. In 2024, the Catalan gallery Prats Nogueras Blanchard will host the solo exhibition «Paratopias», bringing together Muntadas' works from the 1970s to the present, along with newly produced pieces created especially for the occasion.
Recent solo exhibitions include Muntadas. Interconnessioni, MAMbo, Bologna, Italy (2020), Muntadas. Elkarrekiko loturak, interconexiones, interconnessioni, Artium, Vitoria, Spain (2019), Asian Protocols: China, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing, China (2018), Dérive Veneziane, Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo (2017), ...baixa a bola!, Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo, Brazil (2014), Muntadas: Entre/Between, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (2013), Antoni Muntadas: About Academia, SFU Woodward's Cultural Programs, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Vancouver, BC, Canada (2013), Entre/Between, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal (2012), and Eleven, Kent Fine Art, New York, USA (2012).
Recent group exhibitions include Dérive Veneziane, 72nd International Art Cinematographic Exhibition, Palazzo del Casinò, Venice, Italy (2015), The Illusion of Light, Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2014), Fútbol: The Beautiful Game, LACMA, Los Angeles (2014), Revisiting Histories, Kent Fine Art, New York (2014), Stadium, Arc en Rêve Centre d’Architecture, Bordeaux, France (2013), La metodología del proyecto, MUSAC, León (2012), La Triennale, Intense Proximity, Paris, France (2012), and Free Circulation: Works from Serralves Foundation's Collection, Instituto dos Museus e da Conservação, Lisbon, Portugal (2012).