Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz, also known as Martin & Muñoz are artists who collaborate to create dystopian sculptures and large photographic works often based on dioramas.

Biography

Walter Martin was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1953. He received his B.A. from Old Dominion University in Virginia and his M.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University. Paloma Muñoz was born in Madrid, Spain in 1965. She received her B.A. from Universidad Complutense de Madrid and UNED. She is the daughter of Spanish artist Paloma Navares and sister of film maker and producer David Muñoz. Martin and Muñoz have been professional and personal partners since soon after they met in 1993. They live in Milford, Pennsylvania and maintain a studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They work summers at a family retreat in Spain

Work

Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz are best known for their sculptures and photographs contrasting pristine settings with foreboding scenes infused with liberal doses of gallows humor. In their work they explore the human condition, dystopias and alienation. They focus on the multiple narratives implied in a captured moment. Their most popular works are the Travelers snow globes and large photographs. Of these Ken Johnson wrote: "Like fairy tales or dreams, the tiny tableaus work as psychological metaphors: specifically, a stage everyone is bound to enter when life has lost its warmth and promise, at which point finding a new way becomes desperately urgent". Art critic Carlo McCormick considered their snow globes and derived photographs "a medium of futurity": "The magic here is very much about the premonitory, a way of tapping into the globe as a kind of fortune-teller's crystal ball. The cryptic misfortunes, the intimations of mortality, the panoramic tableaux of misadventure, bad luck, and wrong decisions, are all ultimately a medium of futurity..." Some of their other projects include Blind House, Spheres and A Cure for All Remedies and Other Short Stories. Curator Dan Cameron has complemented the artists on their ability to juggle both visual and psychological charges: "At the same time that they produce riddle-like parables about modern existence, they do not shirk the artist's obligation to invent a new formulation of tactile and even sensual pleasure." Martin & Muñoz were commissioned in 2001 by the Arts and Design program of New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority to create a permanent installation for the Canal Street Station on the A, C and E trains. Their installation, titled "A Gathering", consists of 181 black bronze birds perched throughout the station. The birds can be found on the token booth, railings, and beams throughout mezzanine. Aperture Foundation published a monograph of their work with a short story written by Jonathan Lethem, who was inspired by their work. Martin & Muñoz provided the cover and interior art for the New Pornographers' album Together. Martin & Muñoz started using augmented reality (AR) technology in 2020 to create and place virtual works, based on their snow globes, in their exhibitions and in user's environments. Their first AR work was presented at the Cervantes Institute in New York in early 2022.

Selected exhibitions

Collections

Their work is in the collections of many prominent museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki the Museum der Moderne Salzburg in Austria, the Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Málaga, Spain, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid and the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, TN. They are also represented in the private collections of other prominent institutions, including the Progressive Art Collection, Bloomberg L.P. and 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville, KT.