BUFFALO, NY – Canisius University will host acclaimed Puerto Rican artist Alfonso Muñoz on Tuesday, March 15 at 7 p.m. in Old Main Room 314, the Language Resource Center. Muñoz will give a lecture supplemented with slides of his work. A question and answer session will follow. The event is free and open to the public.
As a teenager in his native Puerto Rico, Muñoz apprenticed with Italian artist and prominent cultural figure Antonio Loro. Loro taught Muñoz calligraphy, model making, painting and woodcut artistry, all areas he would excel in later at the University of Puerto Rico and the Art Institute of Chicago. Today, Muñoz counts Paris, Barcelona and New York as inspirations for his works. He has worked in a number of fields including commercial art, where he served as visual specialist for UNESCO in the basic education division. Ceramic art is his focus, but Muñoz experiments with acrylic, wood, constructions, steel sculpting, photography and found object assemblage.
In 2004, Muñoz was included in the (S) Files Biennial at El Museo del Barrio in New York City, an internationally recognized showcase of contemporary Latin American artists in the U.S. The New York Times used Muñoz’ image of Little Boy in the Mercury Forest in its review of the show, which then traveled to the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico. In 2008, he was the recipient of the New York Artists Initiative Fellowship, and in 2009 he participated in a five-country artist exchange at the Amherst College Institute of Training and Development sponsored by the U.S. State Department.
The event is co-sponsored by the Department of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, Sigma Delta Pi (the Spanish Honor Society), the Latin American Studies Program, The William H. Fitzpatrick Institute of Public Affairs and Leadership, embraceWNY and UNITY.
For more information, contact Richard Reitsma, PhD, associate professor of Spanish and Latin American studies, at (716) 888-2408 or @email.
Canisius is one of 28 Jesuit universities in the nation and the premier private university in Western New York.
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