Juan Muñoz was born in 1953 in Madrid. From 1976 to 1977, he attended the Central School of Art and Design in London (now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design). From 1979 to 1980, he studied printmaking at Croydon College of Design and Technology. In 1981 he moved to New York to attend the Pratt Institute, School of Art and Design and work as an artist-in-residence at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, New York. He returned to Spain the following year and devoted a year to curating, before turning his attention to sculpting. Muñoz’s early body of work, begun in 1984, consisted of sculptures of isolated architectural components like balcony railings mounted onto the gallery walls. His first solo exhibition, held at Galería Fernando Vijande in 1984, showcased these early sculptures. He continued to experiment with displaced architectural elements, notably his surreally inclining or drooping banister rails created between 1987 and 1991.