Vik Muniz

Brazilian-born artist Vik Muniz (b. 1961) photographs images he creates, using unconventional materials such as chocolate syrup, sugar, soil and string, and then discards the originals. His photographs and prints offer a representation of the illusion he has 'drawn.' Muniz investigates the mechanisms of perception to reveal how the eye can be tricked and deceived. "What really fascinates me about the photographic process," he says, "is that it endorses the existence of things. A chocolate puddle with the likeness of Freud becomes part of the same history as its notable subject. Photography reveals their true identity as objects." (Abbe Harris, Brazzil Magazine, July, 2003)

"Vik Muniz might be billed as a photographer, and photographs are generally the end product of his work. But in another age he might have been an alchemist, transforming base lead into refined gold. In Vik's case, lead has been replaced by light. He is clearly a visual artist who tinkers equally with light and the mechanisms of perception that decipher the messages light conveys. He tricks the eye to reveal the tricks the eye itself can play and how that trickery has been used by 'shamans, priests, artists, and con men' throughout history to evoke both power and belief. Vik works with the most rudimentary materials-sugar, soil, string, wire, chocolate syrup-to reconstruct images that we carry in a vast collective reservoir of visual memory. The quality of his draftsmanship with these rude materials displays a gift for bringing brilliance and humor to the commonplace-not unlike the physical genius of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. Vik photographs these images, and then discards the originals, so that we are left with a tantalizing representation of the illusion he has created." (Mark Magill, BOMB Magazine, Fall, 2000)

Displacements (Sashimi, Bamby, Karate)

This collaboration with Vik Muniz revisits his series of color photographs from 1995 titled Deslocamentos (Displacements). Created using traditional photogravure methods, this group of three images, Sashimi, Bamby, and Karate feature empty rectangles and squares that suggest newspaper clippings, further manipulated to appear as if they have been crumpled and then flattened. Below the outlined blank spaces are seemingly random captions, compelling the viewer to gauge the power of the caption over the image.

Lovebugs

Millions of lovebugs, or march flies, hatch, mate, lay eggs and die within the span of a month every spring and fall in Florida. Coupled at the tail like two headed beasts, they swarm in clouds, leaving sticky corpses splattered across cars and the landscape. In a witty take on this phenomenon, which he witnessed during his residencies at Graphicstudio, Vik Muniz gathered thousands of pairs of the amorous insects to create iconized images of sexual positions from the Kama Sutra, the ancient Hindu text on human sexual behavior.

Auditions

Auditions, a suite of four photogravures, feature satirical sculptural busts representing four basic and universal human emotions: happiness, sadness, anger and pensiveness. Auditions initially began as a project of photographs of sculptures representing fifty-two different facial expressions. After completing the first four (that now make up Auditions), Muniz abandoned the project and initiated Individuals, the series of photogravures based on fifty-two photographs of various sculptures shaped out of one piece of clay. Published by Graphicstudio, Muniz's Auditions are universally humorous character studies that recall the 19th century satirical sculptures by the French satirist Honoré Daumier (1808-79).

Vik

Muniz's long fascination with the work of Chuck Close is reflected in this planographic self-portrait. At Graphicstudio, he pays homage to Close's Fingerprint portraits, and uses found rubber stamps in the studio (such as TO BE DESTROYED, NOT FOR SALE, ABANDONED PROJECT) for inking his own image. The resulting lithograph, Vik, was printed on a deep yellow screenprint background.

Individuals

Early in his career, Vik Muniz created a series of photographs that he came to call Individuals. Working with a single lump of white plasticine clay and a set of rules, he fashioned one deliberately ambiguous sculpture after another, photographing each only to destroy it afterwards to repeat the process until he had sixty images. He printed them as platinum prints, and displayed them along with empty pedestals, so that the public could imagine the different sculptures in the space. Muniz's inspiration came from photographs made by sculptors from their own work, chiefly Brancusi and Rosso. Writes Muniz, "The images of the sculptures are idealized objects. Seen from the perfect vantage, they offer no clues as to scale, material or weight. Their flatness leaves room for myriad interpretations; their ambiguity renders them part of anyone's experience. They have become mental objects. "

The exhibition of Individuals marked Muniz's decision to dedicate himself to photography in a novel way. He began to produce, and continues to produce, objects that have documentation as their main objective. For his major exhibition, Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primer, the artist decided to revisit Individuals as a portfolio of photogravures with text. The artist's original negatives were scanned and made into fifty-two copper plates that were produced as photogravures. The artist's original text was printed by letterpress also included in the suite. The prints are stored in a handmade maple box designed by the artist, with an attached frame/cover that can be secured in an upright position to display the work, one print a week for every week of the year.

VIK and JORGE

Vik Muniz's self-portrait and portrait of Seu Jorge relates to the series of color photographs titled Pictures of Magazines, 2003. Friend of Vik, Seu Jorge, achieved fame as a singer while living on the streets of Rio de Janeiro and later appeared in the films City of God and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. In this portrait, Muniz pays tribute to his friend and to Chuck Close, whose photography-based prints also portray his friends.

Using a hole-punch, the artist cut thousands of tiny paper circles from magazines and arranged them in a collage to create a portraits of Seu Jorge and himself. For the print edition, the image was photographed and printed as a photogravure. To achieve luminosity and color, the image was printed on silk collé, light silk adhered to heavy rag paper. Chuck Close also used the collé method in several of his Fingerprint series published by Graphicstudio in 1986.

Further Resources

Artist's Site: vikmuniz.net

Printmaking + Sculpture Terms

Printmaking Glossary

Sculpture Glossary

Sales

For sales, or more information about an edition, please contact Graphicstudio at (813) 974-3503 or gsoffice@usf.edu.

Copyright + Reproduction

Images of the artwork are jointly owned by the artist and Graphicstudio. Reproduction of any kind including electronic media must be expressly approved by Graphicstudio.