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Texas Artist to Activate the Carter’s Sloping Gallery
The Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter) has announced that it will present conceptual and multimedia artist Celia Álvarez Muñoz’s installation El Límite (the boundary or limit) as the next exhibition in the Museum’s first-floor Sloping Gallery—the space linking the Carter’s original 1961 building and its 2001 expansion.
Based in Texas, Muñoz is celebrated for her work that addresses the dichotomies of the Mexican American experience through photography, works on paper, and various multimedia. Celia Álvarez Muñoz: El Límite will be on view from January 17, 2026, through October 18, 2026.
Installation view, Celia Álvarez Muñoz: El Límite, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, February 16–June 2, 1991
In El Límite, Muñoz explores the railroad and its role in the connection and division of countries, traditions, cultures, and languages. Originally exhibited in 1991 at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Muñoz’s installation at the Carter will be augmented by direct references to and works by Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada, whose practice Muñoz first encountered at the Carter in his 1980 solo exhibition. Posada’s Mexico, which was co-organized by the Carter, exposed Muñoz to the woodcut aesthetic of the iconic Mexican printmaker’s work and his interest in daily life and the railroad as subject matter, all of which deeply impacted the original conception of El Límite and the rest of Muñoz’s practice.
“The Carter’s presentation of El Límite marks a special homecoming of Muñoz’s installation to a profound point in her life that catalyzed the rest of her artistic career,” said Andrew Eschelbacher, Director of Collections & Exhibitions. “By bringing these two artists’ interconnected practices together, audiences can draw parallels between Muñoz’s and Posada’s nuanced explorations of the railroad’s disruptiveness and connectivity. Our Sloping Gallery—a space that physically bridges the eras of our Museum—provides a symbolic setting to present these two different generations of artistic output.”
Installation view, Celia Álvarez Muñoz: El Límite, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, February 16–June 2, 1991
Anchoring the installation will be two large-scale photographs by Muñoz depicting a train formed with empty cans filled with mundane materials, both printed on felt and mounted on bright yellow walls. The images draw inspiration from the toy trains with which Muñoz’s father played while growing up on the US-Mexico border and also feature train-related stories in Spanish and English text directly on the works. Throughout the rest of the installation, satellite images painted in the gallery reflect the railroad’s role in facilitating the Mexican Revolution and as an industrial intervention into rural communities.
Several Posada relief prints from the Carter’s collection will complement the installation, allowing audiences to trace the direct references in form and style that Muñoz emits in her work. Visitors can also compare and contrast Posada’s depictions of various Mexican subcultures, customs, and symbols with that of Muñoz in each of the works.
José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913); Soprendente Milagro, ca. 1890-1913. Relief print; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas. 1978.384.16
With Celia Álvarez Muñoz: El Límite, Muñoz joins an esteemed list of artists who have presented site-specific installations in the first-floor gallery space as part of the Carter’s commissioning initiative, which has featured works from Jean Shin (2024-25), Leonardo Drew (2023-24), Stephanie Syjuco (2021-22), Natasha Bowdoin (2020-21), and Justin Favela (2019-20). The “Sloping Gallery” initiative, which began in 2019 as a means of reimagining the corridor joining the Carter’s two buildings, provides a venue for the curatorial team to spotlight the work of living artists. While connecting physical spaces, the gallery also bridges past and present, ushering in new work by today’s artists who find inspiration in the American artistic tradition.
Celia Álvarez Muñoz: El Límite is organized by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. The exhibition is supported by The David H. Gibson Foundation.
