Celia Álvarez Muñoz

Celia Álvarez Muñoz is a conceptual multi-media Texas artist known for her diverse works including artist’s books, photography, installation, and public art. She is a recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Awards in Photography and New Genres, the CAA Committee on Women in the Arts Recognition Award, the Honors Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts by Women’s Caucus for Art, the Outstanding Centennial Alumnus by the University of North Texas College of Arts and Sciences, and many others. Her work has been nationally and internationally exhibited, including in the Whitney Museum of American Art 1991 Biennial. Her art is in numerous private and public collections. Álvarez Muñoz’s work has recently been featured in the cataloged exhibition, “Radical Women: Latin American Art 1960-1985,” which toured internationally 2015-2018. Recent books covering her art include Art and Politics Now: Cultural Activism, by Susan Noyes Platt, 2011; Shooting from the Wild Side: A Study of Chicana Art Photographers, by Asta M. Kuusinen, 2006; Art of the Found Object: Texas Artists, by Robert James Craig, Texas A&M University Press 2017; Icons and Symbols of the Borderlands, by Diana Molina of Juntos Art 2020; and Celia Álvarez Muñoz, by writer/poet Roberto Tejada. Obras, published by Cattywampus Press, marked Álvarez Muñoz’s 2020 Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts Award from Art League Houston.

Personal artist statement:

My mission in art making has been of an Artivist; as an artist and an activist. Since my days teaching art at all levels, preschool to university, commissioned residencies and public art, the goal has always been to develop validation or protest to our cultural evolution as a citizen of a community, city, state, country, or the world. In doing so, it has given more meaning to the process of art-making. The commercial art and teaching perspective gave rise to developing projects for commissions. I highlight the following:

1. “Postales” a series of paintings & street signs about dramatic demographic shift in El Paso with the 1960’s settlement of the Chamizal Treaty.

2. “Family Stories: What constitutes family?” Residency collaboration with retirement communities remembering Snugg Harbor in New York’s Staten Island’s and Cerveceria Carta Blanca in Monterrey, Mexico. Installation.

3. “Sentimental Journey,” Phoenix, AZ airport’s connection to WW II and the Confederate Air Force. Public art.

4. “The Embassy Building Project” and “Cheaper by the Dozen” Protest to unfair women’s labor practice in the manufacturing industry in USA and Manchester, England. Book, and installation.

5. “Herencia: Now What?” Roswell, NM’s attitude towards its “aliens.” Residency/Installation.

6. “A Brand New Ball Game.” A coming-out GBTL Texas community’s move to San Francisco, CA, Residency/Installation.

7. “The Accordion Bridge” San Antonio’s convention center expansion hinge honoring regional music, in public art.

8. “El Rio Habla” San Antonio’s River Link park to the history and function of its river. Public art.

9. “Plaza de las Islas.” San Antonio’s main plaza reveals multitude of its stories Public art.

10. “Las Huellas.” A teaching collaboration/protest installation with SMU/West Dallas DHMAL due to the Calatrava Bridge’s gentrification in once segregated Hispanic barrio.

11. “Fibra y Furia: Exploitation is in Vogue.” A protest to the femicides in Cd. Juarez, Mexico, connected to NAFTA maquiladoras. Installation.

12. “Water and Power,” Austin Public Library. Serves as the library’s acknowledgement to its once proximate power and water treatment plants in exterior glass panels and remnants from Green Water Treatment Plant throughout the building. Public art.

13. “Radical Women: Latin American 1960-1985,” the Hammer Museum, Getty Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, the Brooklyn Museum, and Pinacoteca de Sao Paolo, Brazil, Group exhibit 2017-2018.