Winner of Spain’s 2016 National Photography Prize, Isabel Muñoz is most definitely one of Europe’s most renowned women photographers. Her famous tango series, revelling in the corporeal aesthetics and sensuality of dance, finds astonishing parallels. We are proud to host her first major solo show in Japan.

Here in Kyoto we present two of her series. Family Album, shot in Lola Ya Bonobo sanctuary, Lwiro Primate Sanctuary and Kahuzi-Biega National Park forests of northwest in the Democratic Republic of Congo and also in Camp Leaky in Borneo, comprises portraits of our primate cousins—gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees. According to University of Kyoto Chairman of Scientific Research Professor Juichi Yamagiwa, gorillas share with us not only DNA, but also the same behavioral fundaments of family bonding. On the other hand, gorillas are more pure than we are in the direct intensity of their love. Viewers will be amazed at their wealth of expression and sympathetic “greater humanity” as seen through Muñoz’s works.

Love and Ecstasy takes a completely different approach to transcendent love by focusing on the whirling dervishes of Sufi Islam in Syria, Iraq and Turkey, and on other ecstatic religious celebrants the world over who seek the divine by voiding the self. Muñoz’s latest additions to her Love and Ecstasy series will be shown to a limited number of viewers in the secret 3rd floor “octagonal sky chamber” of Kondaya Genbei’s black kura storehouse.

「Love and Ecstasy」contains content that maybe disturbing to some viewers and may not be suitable for all audiences, viewer discretion is advised. Entry restricted 18+

Isabel Muñoz
Isabel Muñoz was born in 1951 in Barcelona, Spain. Since her first solo show Toques (1986), in Madrid, she has emerged as one of the most celebrated of Iberian photographers. She followed up on her early series Tango and Flamenco (1989) with a photographic quest into the human passion and physical beauty in motion seen in Sufi and Ethiopian tribal dancing. She is a recipient of the Spanish Ministry of Culture’s Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts.