Disparitions en cours, Óscar Muñoz


Oscar Muñoz prints charcoal on water and the image distorts as the water evaporates over time.
Shown at the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Philagrafika exhibition.
Narcisos en proceso (Narcissi in Process), 2010 (series 1994 and ongoing)
Screenprinted charcoal powder on water, paper, Plexiglas vitrines



Faces of kidnap victims painted with water
and then filmed disappearing (evaporating) under the sun
Aliento, 1996
Confronting the Image,
etched mirror with portfolio box, 2010



Le travail de Munoz questionne les liens entre image et mémoire, image et identité, image et absence, ou mort.

«Through his innovative processes, such as printing charcoal pigment on water, or using human breath to reveal discretely printed portraits onto seemingly blank mirrors, Muñoz creates unstable images that oscillate between presence and absence. He uses images from newspaper obituaries that include victims of the drug trafficking and political conflicts in Colombia where he lives and works. He is fascinated by photographic images as the primary documentation of a person’s physical existence in a culture overwhelmed by the vulnerability of life: the person’s image, imprinted on film (or captured in digital code), leaves an indexical trace of their being. Muñoz manipulates the photographic images in order to question the meaning of identity and to reflect the process of recollection and fading memory, alluding to the transitory nature of human existence, memory and history. The viewer witnesses the dissolution of an image as a manifestation of the person’s disappearance or death.»