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Milena Muzquiz

Tijuana, México. 1972
Frequent Visitors

Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara, Mexico, 2022.

Frequent Visitors

Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara, Mexico, 2022.

Frequent Visitors

Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara, Mexico, 2022.

Frequent Visitors

Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara, Mexico, 2022.

Frequent Visitors

Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara, Mexico, 2022.

Frequent Visitors

Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara, Mexico, 2022.

Frequent Visitors

Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara, Mexico, 2022.

Frequent Visitors

Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara, Mexico, 2022.

Frequent Visitors

Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara, Mexico, 2022.

Frequent Visitors

Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara, Mexico, 2022.

Frequent Visitors

Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara, Mexico, 2022.

Frequent Visitors

Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara, Mexico, 2022.

1st Edition of Salon Cosa

Jardin 17 Casa Estudio Luis Barragán, Mexico City, 2021.

1st Edition of Salon Cosa

Jardin 17 Casa Estudio Luis Barragán, Mexico City, 2021.

1st Edition of Salon Cosa

Jardin 17 Casa Estudio Luis Barragán, Mexico City, 2021.

1st Edition of Salon Cosa

Jardin 17 Casa Estudio Luis Barragán, Mexico City, 2021.

1st Edition of Salon Cosa

Jardin 17 Casa Estudio Luis Barragán, Mexico City, 2021.

1st Edition of Salon Cosa

Jardin 17 Casa Estudio Luis Barragán, Mexico City, 2021.

The Last Tenant

Casa Masa, Mexico City, 2021.

The Last Tenant

Casa Masa, Mexico City, 2021.

Kilometraje

Installation View, Travesía Cuatro CDMX, 2020.

Kilometraje

Installation View, Travesía Cuatro CDMX, 2020.

Kilometraje

Installation View, Travesía Cuatro CDMX, 2020.

Kilometraje

Installation View, Travesía Cuatro CDMX, 2020.

Kilometraje

Installation View, Travesía Cuatro CDMX, 2020.

Kilometraje

Installation View, Travesía Cuatro CDMX, 2020.

Kilometraje

Installation View, Travesía Cuatro CDMX, 2020.

Kilometraje

Installation View, Travesía Cuatro CDMX, 2020.

Kilometraje

Installation View, Travesía Cuatro CDMX, 2020.

Kilometraje

Installation View, Travesía Cuatro CDMX, 2020.

Kilometraje

Installation View, Travesía Cuatro CDMX, 2020.

Kilometraje

Installation View, Travesía Cuatro CDMX, 2020.

Hôtel L'Arlatan

Arles, France, 2019.

Hôtel L'Arlatan

Arles, France, 2019.

Art Basel Miami Beach

Miami, United States, 2019.

Art Basel Miami Beach

Miami, United States, 2019.

Art Basel Miami Beach

Miami, United States, 2019.

Art Basel Miami Beach

Miami, United States, 2019.

I Am the Door

Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (Getty Foundation program), Los Angeles, United States, 2017.

I Am the Door

Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (Getty Foundation program), Los Angeles, United States, 2017.

I Am the Door

Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (Getty Foundation program), Los Angeles, United States, 2017.

Decor

Boghossian Foundation (group show). Curated by Tino Sehgal, Dorothea von Hantelmann and Asad Raza, Villa Empain, Brussels, Belgium, 2017.

Decor

Boghossian Foundation (group show). Curated by Tino Sehgal, Dorothea von Hantelmann and Asad Raza, Villa Empain, Brussels, Belgium, 2017.

El Curso Natural De Las Cosas

La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain. (group show). Curated by Tania Pardo, 2016.

El Curso Natural De Las Cosas

La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain. (group show). Curated by Tania Pardo, 2016.

El Curso Natural De Las Cosas

La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain. (group show). Curated by Tania Pardo, 2016.

Frieze

New York, United States, 2015.

Frieze

New York, United States, 2015.

Frieze

New York, United States, 2015.

Milena Muzquiz’s works provide a direct encounter with her wit and her engagement with personal narratives and memories. Her paintings of women surrounded, if not enveloped, by flower blossoms, are recollections of memories of places, oozing with nostalgia. Viewers are invited to share her reminiscences of a semi-imaginary world, recalling her Tijuana birthplace and childhood vacations. The artist’s images and motifs feel familiar, rendered in expressionist brushstrokes.  

 Muzquiz’s ceramics are functioning vases, tactile and meant to be handled. In a process of cutting and scoring her clay, applying it to the vessel like paper or ‘magazine cut-outs’ then layering colors, patterns, images, tendrils, baubles and pendants, she creates complex self-portraits, so full of movement, they’re almost performative. ‘My ceramics are not so far from my performance art,’ agrees Muzquiz, whose international reputation was established as one half of the art band Los Super Elegantes, performing for 15 years with Martiniano López Crozet. 

Founded in the 1990s, Los Super Elegantes became a combination of installation, video art and music, which circulated in both institutional spaces such as museums and art fairs, but also in music festivals around Latin America. The artists referenced the fantasy of music understood as mass entertainment as a moldable and open possibility; Muzquiz will reflect this afterwards in her individual work by altering the dynamics of the exhibition space, incorporating performative and participative aspects.   

Milena Muzquiz trained at the California College of Fine Arts, San Francisco and then completed an MFA at the Art Centre College of Design, Pasedena, tutored by conceptual artist Mike Kelley.  

Recent solo exhibitions include: Travesía Cuatro Guadalajara (2022, 2014); Travesía Cuatro CDMX (2020); Travesía Cuatro, Madrid, Spain (2019, 2017, 2014); David Gill Gallery, London, UK (2019); Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA lead by the Getty Foundation (2017); Pantaleone Gallery, Palermo, Italy (2010); Interior Projects, Los Angeles, United States (2008); and Deitch Projects, New York, United States (2000).  

She has taken part in group exhibitions at MASA Galería, Mexico City (2020); Instituto de Visión, Bogotá, CO (2019); Bohossian Foundation, Villa Empain, Brussels, BE (2017); La Casa Encendida, Madrid, ES (2016); Dickinson Gallery, New York, US (2016); Peter Kilchmann, CH (2015); 6th Liverpool Biennial, UK (2010); 28th São Paulo Biennale, BR (2008); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, FR (2007); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, US (2007); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, US (2006).  

Milena Muzquiz lives and works in Los Angeles, USA.  

Untitled

2016.
Oil on linen.
80x65x8 cm.

Untitled

2014.
Hand painted ceramic.
55.9×78.7×114.3 cm.

Untitled

2016.
Oil on linen.
80x65x8 cm.

Untitled

Detail.
2016.
Oil on linen.
80x65x8 cm.

Untitled

2015.
Hand painted ceramic
29x21x35 cm.

Untitled

2015.
Hand painted ceramic.
20x14x14 cm.

Untitled

2015.
Hand painted ceramic.
42x25x26 cm.

Untitled

2015.
Hand painted ceramic.
35x24x35 cm.

Untitled

2015.
Hand painted ceramic.
46x30x43 cm.

Untitled

2015.
Hand painted ceramic.
30x19x20 cm.

Untitled

2015.
Hand painted ceramic.
20x40x52 cm.

Untitled

2016.
Oil on linen.
80x65x8 cm.

Untitled

2014.
Hand painted ceramic.
80 x 70 x 100 cm.