JUAN MUÑOZ (1953-2001)
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JUAN MUÑOZ (1953-2001)

One Laughing at the Other

Details
JUAN MUÑOZ (1953-2001)
One Laughing at the Other
bronze, polyester resin and steel, in two parts
left: 46½ x 24 3/8 x 20¾in. (118 x 62.5 x 52.5cm.)
right: 7 x 51 1/8 x 23 5/8in. (145 x 130 x 60cm.)
Executed in 2000
Provenance
Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in June 2004.
Exhibited
Paris, Marian Goodman Gallery, Juan Muñoz, 2004.
Klosterneuburg, Essl Museum - Kunst der Gegenwart, Figur/Skulptur, 2005-2006, p. 143 (illustrated in colour, p. 142).
Düsseldorf, K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen, Juan Munoz-Rooms Of My Mind, 2006-2007, pp. 158 and 169. no. 65(illustrated in colour, p. 159).
Klosterneuburg, Essl Museum - Kunst der Gegenwart, Passion for Art: 35th Anniversary of the Essl Collection, vol. III, 2007, pp. 340 and 550 (illustrated in colour, p. 341).
Special notice
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.
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Katharine Arnold
Katharine Arnold

Lot Essay

‘Two men are sitting in tubular frame chairs mounted on the wall above eye level. Like all of Juan Muñoz’s figures, they are entirely monochromatic. Their clothing looks as if it had been ‘striped’ by the teeth of a comb and resembles prison garb. While their extremely similar faces are moulded naturalistically, their hands look like rubber gloves filled with water. One of the figures is leaning back while the other is leaning forward, and both of them are obviously laughing uproariously. Only there is no sound. However, out of the mouth of the figure on the left, little bronze figures emerge instead of sound, and wind from his face to his hand in an odd procession. The title of this work is One Laughing At The Other. But who is laughing at whom? And what has provoked this uninhibited laughter? The work gives no hint. Moreover, the fact that the chairs float above the viewer creates a physical distance between the viewer and the figures that seem to inhabit a remote imaginary stage – or perhaps a balcony. Early on, Muñoz once said of his notion of distance between the viewer and the work: ‘It should … remain separate from you. So no matter how much you look at it, it’s still outside of you … What’s interesting in theatre is that you cannot answer back. And then the curtains close and you leave. A piece should have that capacity, that you cannot answer back to it’. Thus, the viewer must face the fact that the work does not ask for his help in constituting its meaning. Muñoz goes even further in the same interview: ‘I like to believe that the best work can exist without a spectator. If it’s anything to do with theatre, it’s more to do with the rehearsal than the performance. It’s happening between the players, it has nothing to do with the audience’. (B. J. Scheuermann, quoted in J. Heynen & V. Liebermann (eds.), Juan Muñoz – Rooms of My Mind, exh. cat., K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 2006, p. 158).

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