Vik Muniz
born in 1961 in São Paulo, Brazil
lives and works in New York City
In a labor-intensive and meticulous process, Vik Muniz reproduces images the Western viewer is familiar with from the print media, such as art masterpieces or legendary photographs from news magazines. After he has created his replicas, using a wide range of materials such as powdered pigment, dust, garbage or foods like sugar, chocolate and caviar, he photographs them and then destroys them so that they only exist as photographs. Viewed from a distance, the illusionistic effect and the resemblance of his works to the original pictures are striking. However, when seen up close the images dissolve into a chaotic array of materials, thus turning the attention of the viewer to the symbolic meaning and the formal characteristics of the substances as well as to the elaborate production process. The materials used always have a contextual link to the original images, thus adding another level of meaning. For example, he drew his early portrait series of children whose parents work on Caribbean sugar plantations with white sugar on black paper (“Sugar Children”, 1996), and his “Pictures of Dust” (2000) – reproductions of photographs documenting minimalist sculptures at the Whitney Museum of American Art – are executed in dust collected from the museum’s exhibition spaces.
Since the early 1990s he has been represented on the international art stage with numerous group and solo exhibitions. In 2001 he and Ernesto Neto were responsible for the Brazilian pavilion at the 49th Venice Biennial. He has staged solo exhibitions at institutions such as the MAM Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro (2009), the Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya, Tokyo (2008/2009), the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2007), the MACRO – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma, Rome (2003), The Menil Collection, Houston (2002), and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2001). Vik Muniz also regularly works as a curator. Recently he curated the ninth edition of the exhibition “Artist’s Choice”, staged at MoMA, New York (2008/2009).
EXHIBITIONS:
29.4. - 30.5.2010
“Changing The World”
Group exhibition at ARNDT, Berlin
01.02 - 12.03. 2010
“A Long Way From Home”
Group exhibition at at Arndt & Partner, Berlin
3.04.09 – 20.06.2009
Vik Muniz
at Arndt & Partner, Zurich
29.10.08 – 17.01.2009
Vik Muniz
Solo exhibition at Arndt & Partner, Berlin
Vik Muniz, Louise Brooks, from the series: Pictures of Diamonds, 2005 , digital c-print, 152,4 x 121,92 cm | 60 x 48 in "Waste Land" won the Panorama Audience Prize
Vik Muniz was born in São Paulo in 1961. He is widely regarded to be one of Brazil’s most significant contemporary artists. He makes use of all sorts of material – including food and rubbish – in order to create his large works of art; he has also often demonstrated his dedication to social issues.
In WASTE LAND Lucy Walker provides a record of one of his most elaborate projects – an installation in ‘Jardim Gramacho’, one of the largest garbage dumps in the world. The dump is located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, where the poorest of the poor live. Many of these people earn a living from.
One of them is Tiao, a charistmatic dreamer who has founded a Catadores cooperative; bookworm Zumbi, who is a real intellectual, or eighteen-yearold Suelen, who is already mother of two children and is pregnant with a third. She’s been working at the rubbish dump since she was seven years old and is proud that she has never had to work as a prostitute.
Guided by Vik Muniz, they create extraordinary work of art which involves them shaping of self-portraits in and from the rubbish. The work changes not only their view of themselves, but also their view of the world. and the alchemy of the human spirit.
Screenings of WASTE LAND in the Panorama Section:
13.02.10 International 17:00
14.02.10 CineStar 7 14:30
19.02.10 CineStar 7 22:30
21.02.10 Colosseum 1 15:30
Works from the "Pictures of Garbage" by Vik Muniz are on view through 13 March 2010 in the group show "A Long Way From Home".