Muntadas' work explores social, political, and communication themes—such as the relationship between public and private space within specific social contexts, or the channels of information and how they are used to censor or disseminate ideas. He presents his projects across various media, including photography, video, publications, the internet, installations, and urban interventions.
Muntadas has taught and led seminars at institutions across Europe and the United States, including the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Bordeaux, and Grenoble; the University of California, San Diego; the San Francisco Art Institute; Cooper Union in New York; the University of São Paulo; CAFA in Beijing; and the University of Buenos Aires. He has also been an artist-in-residence and visiting professor at research and educational centers such as the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, the Banff Centre in Alberta, Arteleku in San Sebastián, Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains, and Western Sydney University. Notably, he served as a visiting professor in the Visual Arts Program at MIT’s School of Architecture (1977–2014) and currently teaches at the IUAV University of Venice.
In 2023, Muntadas delivered lectures and seminars at institutions across Asia and Australia, including the School of Creative Media (Hong Kong), Vietnam National Institute for Culture and Arts Studies (VICAS, Hanoi), the Centre for Visual Art (University of Melbourne), and the School of Art & Design (University of New South Wales, Sydney). That same year, he was a guest speaker for the program "La construction de la Peur / Media Architecture Projects," organized by Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Centre Pompidou (Paris).
Muntadas has received awards and grants from institutions such as the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, Ars Electronica in Linz, the Pardo d’Oro (Laser d’Or) in Locarno, the Juan March Foundation’s artistic creation grant (1977), the Premi Nacional d’Arts Plàstiques from Catalonia’s Generalitat, and Spain’s 2005 National Plastic Arts Award. In 2009, he was awarded the Velázquez Prize for Visual Arts by Spain’s Ministry of Culture.
His work has been exhibited at major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Berkeley Art Museum in California, the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, and the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. Internationally, he has participated in Documenta VI and X (Kassel, 1977 and 1997), the Whitney Biennial of American Art (1991), the 51st Venice Biennale (2005), and biennials in São Paulo, Lyon, Taipei, Gwangju, and Havana.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Lugar Público, Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo, Brazil (2025); Sobre/About, Museo Casa de la Moneda, Madrid, Spain (2025); Glass Project, Shanghai Museum of Glass, China (2025); Paratopias, Prats Nogueras Blanchard, Barcelona (2024); Signals: How Video Transformed the World, MoMA, USA (2023); Exercises on Past and Present Memories, Ateneo de Manila, Philippines (2022); Exercises on Past and Present Memories, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain (2022); On Translation: Açik Radyo, Istanbul (2022); Muntadas: Interconnessioni, MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Italy (2020); Palavras, Palavras..., Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo (2020); exhibitions at Artium, Spain (2019) and the National Museum of Natural History and Science, Lisbon (2019); Estrategias del desplazamiento, MEIAC, Badajoz, Spain (2018); Asian Protocols: China, Beijing (2018); About Academia, University of Seville (2017); In Girum Revisited, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2017); Asian Protocols, Tokyo (2016)
Key participations: 17th Istanbul Biennial, Turkey (2022); 72nd Venice International Film Festival, Italy (2015); VII Havana Biennial, Cuba (2000); Documenta X, Kassel, Germany (1997).