MARGATE.- From 26 March 2013, visitors to Turner Contemporary will be able to walk amongst the theatrical figures of Juan Muñoz’s bronze sculpture group Conversation Piece III (2001). The figures will inhabit Turner Contemporary’s spectacular Sunley Gallery, with its double height windows and views of the sea.

The Conversation Piece figures are arranged in carefully staged groupings, apparently frozen mid-conversation. Like many of Muñoz’s figures, they are slightly smaller than life-sized, playing with our sense of scale and perspective.

The Spanish artist described himself as a storyteller. He is known for his unsettling sculptures of individuals or groups placed in architectural settings. He came to prominence during the mid-1980s and was associated with a return to the human form in contemporary art. His large-scale installation in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall (Double Bind, 2001) was the second in the Unilever Series at Tate Modern and was Muñoz’s last major work before his death at the age of 48 that same year.

Conversation Piece III (2001) will replace Maria Nepomucano’s Breathing Time in the Sunley gallery. Following on from its appearance at Turner Contemporary, Breathing Time will continue on to the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro from 5 July to 8 September 2013.