Juan Muñoz, "A Place Called Abroad"

Juan Muñoz, "A Place Called Abroad", 1996, Dia Art Foundation.

Reminiscing with my former art history professor, Dag Sveen, about the day we spent together roaming New York City art galleries back in 1996, I found out that among all the shows we saw that day, neither of us remember more than two, and those are the same two! - Both were at Dia in Chelsea, and both were sculpture/installations.

The scrawny picture above is the only one I have managed to find from Spanish artist Juan Muñoz' "A Place Called Abroad". He had changed the gallery space into an eerie streetscape and naked interiors inhabited by figures absorbed in something we as viewers were not invited into. It gave us an uneasy, but very interesting feeling of being foreigners in "A Place Called Abroad".

What I have found, though, is this beautiful video, made as homage to the artist who died in 2001, by Ray Anderson: 

A Place Called Abroad (for Juan Muñoz) from Ray Anderson on Vimeo.

The music is by Alberto Inglesias, and it is apparently the same music as Juan Muñoz listened to while he installed the work. (It certainly adds to the melancholy mood...)

***
Fred Sandback's subtle string sculptures were the other works both Dag and I remember from that gallery crawl. I'll get back to that someday soon.