A Life Cut Short MuÒoz Retrospective Includes Dramatic Sculptures, Drawings by Gary Tischler It was meant to be a view of the artist at mid-career. Now, "Juan MuÒoz," at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, is a full-blown career retrospective of the art and works of the great Spanish artist and sculptor who died shockingly at the age of 48 of an aneurysm in August. The exhibitionónearly 60 sculptures, installations, drawingsóhas an unfinished feel to it, or rather the feel of an unfinished life. It as if MuÒozís figures, captured this way or that way, or standing or sitting incomplete, have places to go, shapes to change into. There is an intimate relationship between MuÒoz and the Hirshhorn, where a group of his unsettling figures, those small-headed, wobbly, mummy-wrapped shapes with pear bottoms, occupy a space outside and where now, as part of the exhibition, a flying figure sways over the fountain, like some tormented being attempting to flee. Critics called him a "master dramatist of human perception." Iím not sure what that means in context of the exhibition, except that much of his workóthose gnome-like small beings, those groups of smiling trolls, those dreamy black-and-white "Raincoat" drawings, those balconies on the shocking white wallsóseems ready to abscond, depending from where you are watching. So in the sense that the viewer is being looked atóor invited, or ignored, or is being offered different viewsóhis works are about perceptions. But you also have to remember that this is one of the most literary of physical artistsóMuÒoz started out as a writer and curator and remained a practicing poet. Pirandello figures strongly as a literary influence in his work, as does Roland Barthes. These are the playwrights, the wordsmiths of alienation and disorientation, and thatís one of the reactions and responses that seem appropriate wandering through this exhibition. His oddly human sculpturesóheads, hands, feet only at times, seem when theyíre alone to be disoriented, at sea. One props up or is sustained by a wall, and those long pear bottoms make it difficult for them to take off running, as if they are all but inviting us to catch them before they fall. "The Conversation Piece" became a conversation piece as it remains in the Hirshhorn plaza and in the 1990s, MuÒoz had acquired quite a reputation for his solo exhibitions, which were events to be experienced, as well as examples of art to be viewed. His sculptures are examples of uncommon humanity, dwarves, ventriloquists, those whispering, jacketed beings, but they also seem to be about the shared human experience, sometimes on the edge of a nightmare. Certainly those black and white drawings of empty roomsóthe "Raincoat" drawingsóare the stuff of dreams: rooms dark and white, full of beds, mattresses, pillows, lights on a cabinet, a beckoning hallway, a rumpled love seat, light from an open door, a throw rug half under a bed. They look like things and places weíve dreamed as sad, unwanted destinations where we end up in a corner, alone. As MuÒoz wrote, explaining Pirandello, "I am speaking of a sleepless rain that falls day and night on a normal conversation.Ö Falling on an indifferent conversation." In these drawings, we are, as MuÒoz wrote elsewhere, "standing still in a dark room." Perhaps trembling, wondering, as we are now. Gary Tischler is a regular contributor for The Washington Diplomat.