Isabel Muñoz Villalonga (Barcelona, 1951). Untitled, "Serie ballet de Cuba", 2005. B/W photography (silver bromide). Unknown edition. Slight damage to the frame.

Lot description

ISABEL MUÑOZ VILLALONGA (Barcelona, 1951). Untitled, "Serie ballet de Cuba", 2005. B/W photography (silver bromide). Unknown edition. Slight damage to the frame. Measurements: 100 x 100 cm; 124 x 124 cm (frame). In this work, Isabel Muñoz captures a unique moment of a dancer, where the movement is reduced to its purest essence, synthetic and at the same time deeply poetic. This sensitivity towards the body and its expressive capacity is part of the trajectory of the artist, whose work is currently presented in the exhibition Las piedras del cielo. Isabel Muñoz. Cuadernos de campo, at the Galería de las Colecciones Reales (from June 4 to September 6, 2026), a project that brings together some of the essential lines of her work: the observation of the body, cultural memory and the intimate relationship between human beings and their environment. Isabel Muñoz was born in Barcelona, although at the age of 20 she moved to Madrid, where she began studying photography in 1979 at Photocentro. Her black and white photographs are a study of people through the human body or images of bullfighters, dancers or warriors. Muñoz uses an artisanal and meticulous process called platinotype, a technique used by photographers in the early 19th century, which has a great quality and a unique texture. Muñoz primarily uses black and white in his work, except when he explores anthropological or social themes. On such occasions, as when working with drag queens and primitive tribes, he uses color. He travels around the world making architectural works and addressing the problems of child trafficking and slavery in Southeast Asia. In Ethiopia (2005) he focused on the tribes that decorate their bodies as a form of expression: the Surma, Nyangaton, Hammer, Banna, Bodi, Mursi, Karo and Nuer. In 2006, he visited El Salvador to photograph urban tribes and make works about violence. He worked on a project, Our Small World, to photograph children in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. He traveled to Iran, Syria, Turkey and Iraq and exhibited the work El amor y el éxtasis (Love and Ecstasy) as part of PHotoEspaña 2010. In Mexico, he exhibited La Bestia (The Beast), which travels through Mexico full of immigrants, Mexico full of immigrants, with great risk to their lives. Slight damage to the frame.