Juan Munoz: Seven Rooms - Stuttering Piece

Muñoz’s 1993 work Stuttering Piece features two small figures, only inches tall, seated on cardboard stools and nestled in the corner of the gallery under a dramatic spotlight.

Juan Muñoz

Stuttering Piece, 1993

Resin, cardboard, and audio soundtrack

Figure I: 8 1/2 x 4 3/4 x 8 inches (21.6 x 12.1 x 20.3 cm)
Figure II: 9 x 4 x 7 inches (22.9 x 10.2 x 17.8 cm)
Overall dimensions vary with each installation

An audio track endlessly loops a snippet of conversation:

“What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You never say anything. No. But you keep coming back to it.”

Photo of the first performance of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at the Théâtre de Babylone, Paris, January 5, 1953

“There is a strongly absurdist tone to these fragmentary dialogues, one that is reminiscent of [playwright Samuel] Beckett and [Italian dramatist Luigi] Pirandello.”

—Neal Benezra, director of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Juan Muñoz, Stuttering Piece, 1993. © Juan Muñoz Estate/VEGAP, Madrid. Courtesy Juan Muñoz Estate and David Zwirner. Courtesy Lisson Gallery. Photo by John Riddy

“Beckett and Borges, T.S. Eliot and David Mamet: Muñoz was the most literary of sculptors.”

—Laura Cumming, art critic

Installation view, Juan Muñoz: Seven Rooms, David Zwirner, New York, 2022

“[Muñoz’s] oeuvre has long been described as one dominated by silence but where sound plays a fundamental role, not just through its palpable absence but also through its potential via the psychological empathy of the spectator to attempt to ‘hear’ or understand the non-verbal dialogues of his characters.”

—Sheena Wagstaff, in the catalogue for Juan Muñoz: A Retrospective, Tate Modern, 2008

Installation view, Juan Muñoz: Seven Rooms, David Zwirner, New York, 2022

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