Installation views of the "Birds-Kites" by Aurèlia Muñoz, 2026. Photo: Roberto Ruiz
Exhibition
until 29.03.2027
Aurèlia Muñoz’s Birds-Kites
in progress
Coinciding with the start of the Aurèlia Muñoz Centenary, three reconstructions of sculptures from the artist’s emblematic Birds-Kites series have been installed in the Atrium of MACBA. Muñoz conceived the works to be installed high-up and in dialogue with natural light: conditions that are faithfully reproduced in the current presentation.
Originally made in the early 1980s, at that time the pieces were exhibited at the Palacio de Cristal in Madrid, the Drassanes Reials in Barcelona and as part of the 11th Lausanne International Textile Biennial. Muñoz’s intention was for the works to hover over places and people, creating the sensation of expanded space both outdoors and inside large buildings. At MACBA, these works will occupy the Atrium of the Meier Building for much of the commemorative year, before travelling to different venues throughout Catalonia.
Born Aurèlia Muñoz Ventura in Barcelona on 13 April 1926, she dedicated more than five decades to artistic practice in multiple media and is recognised today as one of the key figures for understanding the evolution of contemporary art. This commemoration highlights the pioneering and visionary role of an artist whose work, primarily sculptural but also encompassing painting and drawing, explored and renewed ancestral techniques such as embroidery, macramé and papermaking, engaging in dialogue with the artistic avant-gardes of her time, while simultaneously forging connections between disciplines such as art, architecture, theatre and engineering. Her work reveals a committed world view that anticipated ecological and social concerns such as material sustainability and interspecies relationships, as well as highlighting the importance of diversity and poetics as links between artistic production and life.
The production and installation are carried out by MACBA with the support of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Aurèlia Muñoz Archive, and the collaboration of Casa Batlló Contemporary. The installation also establishes a symbolic dialogue with the work of Antoni Gaudí in the year of the centenary of his death.
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Curated by: Sílvia Ventosa Muñoz, Head of the Aurèlia Muñoz Archive.
Scientific Advisor: einaidea (Fundació Eina, Barcelona), under the direction of curator and writer Manuel Cirauqui.
artist
Aurèlia Muñoz
Barcelona, 1926
Following her studies at the Escola d’Arts Aplicades (School of Applied Arts) and at the Escola Massana in Barcelona, Aurèlia Muñoz dedicated herself to the research and exploration of contemporary textile art, a field in which she soon became an international benchmark. Around 1960, she painted her first work on hessian, which subsequently acted as a trigger. Interested in the symbolic simplicity of the Romanesque and the rhythmic poetics of artists such as Paul Klee, for a few years she continued painting on hessian, while also making embroidery with hand-dyed wool. In the mid-seventies, she discovered macramé and other ancient knotting techniques, such as those used by fishermen in Blanes. In those years, Muñoz started to find her own language. She began exploring three-dimensionality and monumentality, her tapestries abandoning the mimicry of painting and the wall, and becoming fully autonomous. Now free from the threads and roots that anchored them to the ground, they took on verticality until they became beings suspended in the air. It is at that time, in the mid-seventies, that her emblematic winged forms of birds and kites began to appear, together with her work using the form of the book. By this time, her production was fully conceptual, incorporating new materials such as canvas and sails supported by metal structures. In her last years, the artist worked with handmade paper to create mobiles and three-dimensional forms.
Initially included in the so-called Nouvelle Tapisserie and the Catalan Tapestry School, from the mid-sixties she participated in the Lausanne International Tapestry Biennials (1965, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1977 and 1983) and in the first international exhibition of artistic textiles at the Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo in Madrid (1969). Following which, she participated in events such as the São Paulo Biennial (1973), Fiber Works, Kyoto (1976), Venice Biennale (1978), and group shows at the Art Institute of Chicago (1999), Château d’Ansembourg, Luxembourg (2001-03), Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019), CentroCentro, Madrid (2021) and the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (2021), among many others. Solo exhibitions have been held at the Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao (1990) and Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona (2019). In 2026, a major retrospective titled Aurèlia Muñoz. Beings is being held at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, and MACBA, Barcelona. Muñoz’s work is included in numerous collections around the world, such as the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh; Fundación Juan March, Madrid; and MACBA, Barcelona.
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Aurèlia Muñoz’s “Birds-Kites”: Behind an Installation
Aurèlia Muñoz’s “Birds-Kites”: Behind an Installation
Organised by
In collaboration with
With the support of
Aurèlia Muñoz Centenary
To mark the centenary of the birth of Aurèlia Muñoz (1926–2011), a constellation of cultural institutions across Catalonia has come together to celebrate one of the most singular artists of the 20th century.
