A Mind of Winter
Walter Martin & Paloma Munoz

Surreal landscape dioramas with absurdly bizarre scenes are the trademark of Walter Martin (1953 Norfolk, VA, US - Milford, PA, US) and Paloma Muñoz (1965 Madrid, ES - Milford, PA, US). In the detailed manufactured snow globes, photographs and sculptures, the two have been creating a dystopian cosmos for almost 30 years. This is populated by characters who are stranded in an icy, eerily beautiful wilderness of snow mountains, blocks of ice, mysterious bodies of water and dead trees, often finding themselves in hopeless situations. Exploiting nostalgia and sentimentality—both commonly associated with the snow globe—the kitschy souvenir becomes the stage for black humor. Strange interactions between the figures in the snow globes and catastrophes that are apparently imminent or have already occurred refer to the insecurity and the abysses of human relationships and the psyche. Parallel to the snow globes, numerous other groups of works have been created in recent years, which combine contemplative landscapes with current topics and art-historical contexts.

This publication accompanies and documents the artist couple's first Austrian museum exhibition and, in addition to the theme of kitsch as a new approach to their work, also addresses the theme of American Gothic.

Edited by Thorsten Sadowsky for the Museum der Moderne Salzburg
With a foreword by Thorsten Sadowsky and texts by Dorit Ehlers, Ruth Mätzler, Tina Teufel and Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz

Hardcover, 144 pages
approx. 100 illustrations
Publisher Library of the Province, Weitra, 2020
German edition
ISBN 978-3-99028-899-3