Narcisos
Started in 1994 as an exercise of self-portraiture, Narcisos was the first time Muñoz made serigraph impressions of coal dust on water. The artist devised a screen printing technique to transfer his portrait onto a water surface. He used a tray to contain the liquid component and during the evaporation process, the charcoal dust placed on its surface settled on the bottom of the tray having distorted the original image in the process. A modern turn of the myth of Narcissus, the project evokes the impermanence and fragility of the image, which eventually refers to the very idea of remembering and forgetting, and ultimately to mortality.
Artwork Details
- Title: Narcisos
- Artist: Oscar Muñoz (Colombian, born 1951)
- Date: 1995
- Medium: Coal dust over glass over Plexiglas
- Dimensions: 14 3/8 × 14 3/8 × 1 1/8 in., 4 lb. (36.5 × 36.5 × 2.9 cm, 1.8 kg)
- Classifications: Prints, Sculpture
- Credit Line: Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 2019
- Object Number: 2019.181
- Rights and Reproduction: © Oscar Muñoz
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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