Untitled (Balcony)

Juan Munoz's first one-person exhibition in Madrid in 1984 included several small iron balconies. "Munoz's balconies soon grew in scale and finesse and established a direct relationship with the wall. Their leggy supports gradually disappeared, reducing structural and formalistic interference to a minimum... The vacant form, in fact, surreptitiousy acts to lure the unwitting viewer into a cat and mouse game negotiated between the observer and the observed. The player walks in front of and below the perch watching the "other"--the imaginary one(s) who would occupy the balcony--while the "other" turns the watching on the walker. Walking becomes integrally bound to viewing and perceiving." (S. Henger and P. Schimmel, exh. cat., Objectives: The New Sculpture, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, California, 1990, p. 118)