Isabel Muñoz
Isabel Muñoz: The sixth woman selected by the Academy of Fine Arts was the late photographer who today received all the recognitions: a National Photography Award (2016), and two World Press Photo or Gold Medals for Merit in Fine Arts.
Isabel Muñoz: The beauty and pain of the body are constants in her work. The artist who travels with her camera through the streets, brothels, and seas of Cuba, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Japan says: Syria…
Isabel Muñoz: Born in Barcelona 71 years ago and raised professionally in Madrid, Isabel Muñoz Villalonga is the sixth woman to be elected an academic by the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts. As recognizable by her work, as she is not known personally, she was almost self-taught, but quickly gained international exposure.
Isabel Muñoz: Her work focuses on the veneration of the body -and of dance- and on the representation of the injustices of the world. All with the same formal sponsorship. It’s amazing how much strength she was able to extract from a seemingly frail little body to plunge into icy water or stand in front of galloping horses.
Isabel Muñoz: The daughter of a wealthy family in Barcelona – her father owned the Ritz – Muñoz moved to Madrid when she married at the age of 18. Her discovery of the world and her sufferings, after accidents and losses, gave her a look capable of penetrating the pain of others.
Isabel Muñoz: This is her voice today. and that playful but relaxed tone; Kind but very guarded, he talks about her in her office, pulling her legs or stroking her long dark hair. There are photos of her. A man appeared, with a spine painted red with a missing vertebra, representing her. She repeats during the interview: “Respect is what is saved.”
Isabel Muñoz: We all have an image. How do you reach it
I am interested in the invisible. Getting it is complicated.
Who Arrives Isabel Muñoz
Being photographed is an act of love. If the photo is not presented to you, you can already dance. The door is opened by him and whoever is photographing must be careful. The photo is an agreement between two people.
What does someone have to do to surrender to a photographer?
Isabel Muñoz: There are no formulas. Give yourself confidence, that to me is love. When you do the math before love or before shooting, the result is networking. The best image is attention but without premeditation. without Internet.
What is the risk?
Isabel Muñoz: The image represents two people: the one who shoots and the one who shoots. And it counts what is not seen, which is life.
Ensures that the eyes do not lie.
Isabel Muñoz: A smile denotes an attitude, but those who speak are the eyes. Since I was young I have been obsessed with humans. I was born with a concern for others. My mother used to say: “Isabel, who always advocates for difficult causes, will never have any.”
She has a lot. How was her relationship with that mother, Carmen Villalonga?
I never confuse my personal problems with my work.
He affirms that everything is in appearance: love, power, envy…
Isabel Muñoz: They are all serious and I use them quite a lot. But I get too many places through the eyes. There are many ways to see love. The most important thing you can do in life is to love. And the best thing you can have is to be loved. But there are no formulas.
What are your most difficult photos?
Isabel Muñoz: The most difficult thing is when you perceive the pain of others. For example, children have been victims of human trafficking. But I have always said that I cannot portray anything that I do not like. I had to find my specialty. When I started doing photography for movies like Fat Salt, I had to do what they told me to do.
It also seemed to him that portraying a tragic situation was using the pain of others. Isn’t a complaint necessary?
Isabel Muñoz: Of course, if it were a complaint, yes. Otherwise, it is despicable. What I realized is that I will never be a good reporter. The reporter overcomes his humility before the other. And I do not. This is difficult for me. In the end, it all depends on how you count things. And respect is what you get.
Do you put beauty before any information?
Isabel Muñoz: This beauty is there. In the worst and most difficult life, there is beauty. This is what allows us to live. When you’re in the hole, it’s this light that keeps you going. I’m trying to find that beauty. Also as a human being.
What taught you to search?
Isabel Muñoz: I think life is something related to your childhood. How is it shaping schools and education? There are things to add, to correct the teachings, but the original is there, in the little person.
What is the first beautiful thing you remember?
Isabel Muñoz: There are many good moments. But memory also includes bad things. Among the good things, there are games. At that time, he created his games and made his movies. They were beautiful moments that I shared with my sisters. We are four. I am the second one.
What taught you to search?
Isabel Muñoz: I think life is something related to your childhood. How is it shaping schools and education? There are things to add, to correct the teachings, but the original is there, in the little person.
What is the first beautiful thing you remember?
Isabel Muñoz: There are many good moments. But memory also includes bad things. Among the good things, there are games. At that time, he created his games and made his movies. They were beautiful moments that I shared with my sisters. We are four. I am the second one
Are you the sum of what you witnessed or what you experienced?
what I lived
And this comes out?
I would like it to appear in my work. I have developed my vision. I am able to have fun, fortunately. But I find it hard to separate pain from happiness. I think they are two sides of the same coin.
Why were you so concerned about other people’s pain?
Well since I was little I felt the pain of other people. I went to the psychotherapist Fernando Egea 17 years ago and one day he told me: “Don’t worry Isabel. The way of loving does not change. The good thing is that we accept ourselves as we are.”
Was it hard for you to accept yourself?
Isabel Muñoz: I accept myself. I know myself. But I am a fighter. And there are things that I had to change. Over the years I have learned not to judge. I believe that others are understood when we realize that we are nothing and we love them.
He talks a lot about love. Can you love everyone?
Isabel Muñoz: I believe that love is the only basic thing that a person needs. I understand that sometimes you can’t love. Other times it does not come out to the other.
Professionally he has dedicated himself to highlighting beauty and suffering.
I am interested in that dichotomy: light and darkness, beauty in suffering, and suffering in beauty.
In most of his works, beauty is focused on the body that dances…
Dancing has been central to my life. I did my first work with tango dancers. Later he worked with Víctor Olat and Antonio Canales. Those bodies are beauty and effort, beauty and pain.
When you know someone else’s pain, it relieves you. it stays in you That’s why I think photography is useful for something. And photographing beauty gives you the strength to face it. And remember that beauty and pain exist in the same world. It is tremendous and hopeful.
Does your work represent your development as a person?
What we do speaks for us. Who we are and what we were. The action in most cases is a self-portrait. I have traveled and seen the world. I came back and saw another. Who or what changed? We are changing, everything is evolving.
When did you lose your fear of danger?
Isabel Muñoz: Beginning. But there comes a time when I need to get over it. It was very difficult for me, in Cambodia, to photograph boys and girls who had suffered what they had been through (child prostitution). Before something like this, you have to be very clear about the images. You can’t use that image. You must put yourself at his service.
Isabel Muñoz: Influence cannot be above respect. When you’re photographing a baby, it’s how you do it that sets the message. Mapplethorpe is an amazing photographer. But there is an ambiguity in the photos of him that I avoid when photographing children. Children cannot be converted to sex. One portrays what it seems. I need respect Elegance, like love, is a form of respect. But I’m not a person who analyzes a lot.
He said that he had been at a psychiatrist for 17 years.
Isabel Muñoz: Let’s see, we all need help from time to time. He is an assistant who gives you the guidelines to live with your backpack. I am more intuitive than cerebral. This does not mean that you do not think. But I try not to dwell on things.
He has dedicated his life to making many people visible. And as a child, she felt invisible.
I like to feel invisible. And from this invisibility, see. I don’t need fame.
Do you have a bad memory of Barcelona, where you were born?
Isabel Muñoz: I have my things. But I love Barcelona. It’s a physical thing, you feel your roots. I feel happy there. I was until I was 18.
She lived there in the mansion of the Marquis of Alella, on rue Muntaner, until she fell in love.
I fell in love with a man and I came to live in Madrid. Madrid has given me everything: my children, my career.
In that house there was a collection of works by Goya, Velásquez… Has he returned?
we no longer have it. We have one in the Maresme, where we played when we were children.
She spent her life photographing the bodies of the dancers when her mother did not allow her to continue dancing.
It is the truth. There was a time when Mrs. Palmer asked me to stay longer because she thought she was talented and my mother refused. But one thing is decided by others, another is decided by you and the last thing that life does, that usually rules.
At the age of 13, she bought a Kodak Instamatic with her savings. But in her house there was no shortage.
What you get is important to me. They gave us premieres at Christmas, because my mother was from Valencia and she is usually there. Then when she needed something, she would spend that money. I do it now with my grandchildren.
However, her family helped her find her calling.
There came a time when, when the twins were four years old, my husband, Jesús, encouraged me to resume this passion. I saw an advertisement on the subway for a CEAC course and I signed up.
He married her at 18 for love?
Yes, I’ve been in love with him since I was 14 years old. He was 13 years older than me.
In 1996, after 24 years of marriage, they divorced. Did you start, after your separation, with your social commitment, the other side of your work?
The journey has always been there: the curiosity of the unknown. He has traveled a lot without the smell of kerosene… He has imagined the world a lot from the armchair… He has traveled a lot mentally…
Iran, Syria, Ethiopia, Turkey, Burkina Faso, Mali, Egypt… What were you looking for?
Obviously, this new independence is also reflected in what I do. It is clear that over the past 30 years I have become more and more free: according to age, experience and independence. But I don’t travel to see what I find. I move looking for something specific.
He investigated maras, violent youth gangs, in El Salvador, prostitution in Cambodia…
Ultimately, when you know something, you seek to shed light on it.
How do you participate and protect yourself?
Don’t go to the other side of the world to protect yourself. But every age allows you to see something. In the same way, entering this world from a position not of a reporter stealing photographs, but of creating them, surprises the sitter even more.
What will his speech talk about as an academic?
Photography is a 19th century invention and art and is considered a new visual language. I think there is a lot to do. I will talk about the evolution of photography and my development. of a woman’s voice. The world has discovered another way of looking at me, one that takes nothing for granted.
Have you ever felt like a stranger? ventilator?
No, this has been a constant among many women my age who dedicate their career to something creative, but it is not the case with me. One of the things you quickly learn as a woman is that not everyone can love you, personally or professionally. And it’s fun to learn.
At the age of 31, he began another life in New York. What did you do with your children?
I had a hard time breaking up with them and having a hard time stopping to learn and work to be with them. That’s why she did the courses in the summer and the children stayed with her father.
How did you teach them?
I’m not good at education. It’s very hard for me to say no. His father set limits, he loved him.
He was very lucky, but he also experienced a lot of pain.
I’m a survivor. I cried in pain as I waded into the icy waters to photograph the icebergs. I had a skiing accident 13 years ago that ruined my back. I lost a vertebra in my spine and it took me a year to regain mobility. But then I fell back running in Thailand. Everyone trying to take care of me.
Take a self portrait of a drawing of a broken red column on a man’s back.
Broken because I lost a vertebra.
He was in a car accident and lost the daughter he was expecting. However, he chose to tell others about his pain before his own.
I had never seen him like this before. But yes, I lost my daughter on August 2, 1975.
Are you calling from your pain?
Perhaps the pain is one and the same.
At the age of 17, her son, Julio, was killed in a motorcycle accident. How does that change appearance?
stop life. And you have to decide whether to stay or continue. But yes, pain connects and unites. And that makes you see. You can even become a partner.
Your son Manuel, what does he do?
Management of real estate assets. He is the father of my five grandchildren. I tried to instill in him the excitement that the creative world gives, this discovery. Until I said to myself: “Isabelle, this is prejudice too!” I understood that he was happy with his choice. it was his freedom.
His deceased son, Julio, bears the name of his father, a businessman from the Franco era, owner of the Ritz Hotel in Barcelona, and whose fortune is in the courts.
My father’s life is not mine.
Did you deal with him?
My father is my father. And I have memories. My parents are dancing. I remember dancing with him happily. This was my father to me.
He has dedicated his life to getting other people to talk. Have you ever thought about speaking louder?
I have learned to always run away, never ever. So I don’t know what can happen. But I’m not interested in yelling. At least, so far, I’ve found other ways to express myself.