Latinx Artist Fellowship

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Celia Álvarez Muñoz

Artist and activist

Arlington, TX

My mission in art making has been that of an ‘artivist’—an artist and an activist.

Celia Álvarez Muñoz is a conceptual multimedia artist known for her writing, photography, painting, installation, and public art. Her work has been informed by her experience growing up along the US-Mexico border—a physical as well as psychological space where two cultures intersect—and the constant navigation of that bilingual and bicultural border zone. Álvarez Muñoz taught art to students of all levels, and her work frequently references education and learning, particularly the challenges and misreadings of language acquisition. 

Álvarez Muñoz received a BA in art from Texas Western University in El Paso, and then an MFA from North Texas State University. 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 other honors. Her work has been nationally and internationally exhibited, including in the 1991 Whitney Biennial. Álvarez Muñoz’s work is in numerous private and public collections and was featured in the cataloged exhibition Radical Women: Latin American Art 1960–1985, which toured internationally 2015–18.

Selected Works

People mill around a concrete fountain, including a child playing near the water. Embossed text on the fountain reads, “I WAS TAMED, RIO AMANZADO To YIELD, TO FEED, TO FOSTER, ME NOMBRARON SAN ANTONIO WHO FINDS THE LOST.
A black vinyl record has white text written on the vinyl in a circular manner. Text in the center reads “Big D’s LP - Celia Munoz. Side 1. Stereo. A division of D Hot Guava Graphics.” Text on the vinyl reads: “I was still in my pjs, nursing a cold, when the regular radio program was interrupted. Our ironing lady was one-third through the pile. I switched to T.V. news and saw it playing over and over, burning indelibly into my mind. Never do I pass by Dealey Plaza that people are not measuring the probabilities of a certainty.”