The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Catalina Schliebener Muñoz from their series Satanic Panic, on view from September 22, 2022 – February 5, 2023, with an opening reception on Thursday, September 22, 2022, 6-8 pm.
Satanic Panic book launch on the final day of the exhibition, Sunday, February 5, 2023, 3-5 pm. Cata will be joined in conversation by artist and activist Avram Finkelstein. To reserve a copy of the book Satanic Panic ($25), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.
This show, featuring small- and large-scale mixed media collages and a site-specific mural, draws on Catalina Schliebener Muñoz’s ongoing Satanic Panic series, which they began in 2019. This series references the moral panic that originated in the US in the 1980s, spreading through many parts of the world in the late 1990s, including their home country of Chile. This collective hysteria drew on cold war mythologies, misogynist ideas surrounding care work, racist tropes about outsiders, and conservative responses to the AIDS crisis. As a queer, brown, South American immigrant living in the US and working in the field of early childhood education, Schliebener Muñoz is particularly interested in the fact that many of those accused of crimes tied to this moral panic were queer and/or BIPOC childcare workers.
The Satanic Panic series comprises two primary types of work: large-format collages/murals, and installations of juxtaposed objects such as porcelain figurines and articulated plastic characters from different Disney/Pixar movies. The collages combine fragments of Disney books published in the 1990s with portions of pedagogical books created in the 1960s and 70s. Questions raised by the work center how the activities and games outlined in these books replicate the gender, sexuality, race, and class stereotypes of the adult world, and how those interact with the equally regulated fantasy world of Disney. In this series, Schliebener Muñoz explores the possibility of creating third images that in a subtle way bring all the narratives depicted in the original material into question.
Click here to download a PDF of the press release.
This exhibition was made possible through a Visual Grant from the Café Royal Cultural Foundation.
Catalina Schliebener Muñoz, is a Sudamerican, Chilean-born visual artist who works primarily with collage, installation, and murals. Their work draws on images, objects, and narratives associated with childhood and explores gender, sexuality, and class. Their work has been exhibited in Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Santiago, Chile), Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (New York, NY), Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York, NY), Children’s Museum of Manhattan (New York, NY), Boston Center for the Arts (Boston, MA), Centro Cultural de España (Santiago, Chile), Centro Cultural Recoleta (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Center for Books Arts (New York, NY), Catalyst Arts (Belfast, Northern Ireland), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Brooklyn, NY), Hache Galería (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Galería Jardín Oculto (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Galería Metropolitana (Santiago, Chile), and Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (New York, NY), among others. A recipient of multiple FONDART Grants (Cultural and Arts Development Fund of the Government of Chile), Schliebener Muñoz also received grants from DIRAC (Board of Cultural Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Relations of Chile) and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (New York, NY). They also received a Queer Artist Fellowship from the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (2017), and an Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) Fellowship from the Bronx Museum of the Arts (2018).
In addition, Schliebener Muñoz has extensive teaching experience, from early childhood education to undergraduate education, on topics ranging from philosophy and art theory to art instruction in schools, studios, and museum settings. They are currently working as a teaching artist with the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art and The Queens Museum, and they facilitate gender and sexuality trainings for the Early Childhood Professional Development Institute at the City University of New York (CUNY). They received a Bachelor of Philosophy and a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the Universidad de Arte y Ciencias Sociales (ARCIS; Santiago, Chile).
Featured image: Catalina Schliebener Muñoz, Satanic Panic Series, 2021 (detail) / Collage, graphite and thread on mat / 30 x 40 x 2 in
