Based on the relationship between the visible and the invisible in the development of Antoni Muntadas' projects, this publication examines the five series of works that bring together significant projects reflecting Muntadas's artistic approach since 1999.
This eigth title of the anarchive series, Muntadas Media Architecture Projects –a book and a web-based project– explores five series of works that bring together significant projects reflecting Muntadas's artistic approach since 1999, both in terms of the methods employed and the range of questions raised: On Translation, The Construction of Fear, About Academia, Asian Protocols, and Strategies of Displacement. The artist took the metaphor of the iceberg as a starting point. The visible part offers a journey through the projects as they are presented to the public. The invisible part emphasizes the methodology of the projects, a central theme in Muntadas's practice, whose critical perspective is informed by observation, investigation, and fieldwork. It consists of three levels: the concept (notes, preparatory drawings, and excerpts from interviews with the artist), the process (stages and methods of research, production, and installation of the projects, including 20 original interviews with collaborators), and the local and general context (the city, the architecture, and the activities of the exhibition venue, as well as the social, political, geographical, historical, cultural, and technical conditions that accompany the development of the projects).
Considered one of the most important artists in conceptual and critical art, Antoni Muntadas (born 1942 in Barcelona, lives and works in New York) develops site-specific projects on art, society, and the media, questioning their interactions—whether in terms of systems of power or the relationships between public and private spaces. He creates videos, installations, photographic works, interventions in public spaces, and publications.
Muntadas has taught, led seminars, and given lectures at numerous institutions around the world. In 1977, he was an artist-researcher at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at MIT in Boston, where he served as a professor from 1984 to 2014. Since 2004, he has taught at the Venice University Institute of Architecture (IUAV).
He has received numerous awards and grants, including the Velázquez Prize for Visual Arts (2009), awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture.
His works have been exhibited in major museums. He has also participated in leading international events, such as the 6th and 10th editions of Documenta Kassel (1977, 1997), the Whitney Biennial of American Art (1991), and the 51st Venice Biennale, where he represented Spain (2005). A major retrospective, Muntadas: Entre/Between, was dedicated to him at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 2011–2012. In 2025, Muntadas presented a site-specific solo exhibition titled "Lugar Público" at Sesc Pompeia in São Paulo, Brazil. That same year, the Museo Casa de la Moneda in Madrid opened "Sobre/About Asia," which brings together works produced in Asia following more than 25 years of engagement on that continent.
