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Vik Muniz
Muniz at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in 2013
Born	Vicente José de Oliveira Muniz December 20, 1961 (age 57) Sao Paulo, Brazil
Residence	New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality	Brazil
Known for	Visual art

Vik Muniz (Portuguese pronunciation: [\u02c8vik mu\u02c8nis]; born 1961, in São Paulo, Brazil)^[1] is a Brazilian artist and photographer. Initially a sculptor, Muniz grew interested with the photographic representations of his work, eventually focusing completely on photography. Primarily working with unconventional materials such as tomato sauce, diamonds, magazine clippings, chocolate syrup, dust, dirt, etc., Muniz creates works of art and then photographs them.^[2] His work has been met with both commercial success and critical acclaim, and has been exhibited worldwide.

In 2010, Muniz was featured in the documentary film Waste Land. Directed by Lucy Walker, the film highlights Muniz's work on one of the world's largest garbage dumps, Jardim Gramacho, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. The film was nominated to the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 83rd Academy Awards.^[3][4]

Early life[edit]

Vik Muniz was born in 1961 in São Paulo, Brazil, as the only child of Maria Celeste, a telephone operator, and Vincente Muniz, a restaurant waiter.^[5] Muniz\u2019s grandmother, Ana Rocha, taught him how to read at an early age. In his memoir, Muniz recalled struggling with writing in school which is why he turned to visuals to communicate his thoughts.^[6] At the age of 14, his math teacher recommended him to enter an art contest. He won and was awarded a partial scholarship to an art studio.^[7][6]

Career[edit]

Early career[edit]

At the age of 18, Muniz got his first job working in the advertising industry in Brazil, redesigning billboards for higher readability.^[8] While on the way to his first black-tie gala, Muniz witnessed and attempted to break up a street fight, where he was accidentally shot in the leg by one of the brawlers. He was paid by the shooter to not press charges and used the money to travel to Chicago in 1983. In Chicago, Muniz worked at a local supermarket cleaning the parking lot while he attended night school to study English. In the English class, he learned Polish, Italian, Spanish, and Korean without any improvements to his English vocabulary. Later, Muniz attended culinary and carpentry classes where he learned most his of English.^[8]

Muniz took his first trip to New York in 1984. There, he visited the Museum of Modern Arts and met a woman who changed his thoughts on Jackson Pollock\u2019s paintings. This also influenced Muniz to move to New York just two months after his first visit.^[8] Muniz's friend lent him a studio where he started his career as a sculptor. He was 28 when he had his first solo exhibit in 1989.^[6]

Influences and technique[edit]

Action Photo, After Hans Namuth, 1997

Inspired by works of Man Ray and Max Ernst, Muniz executes simple imagery intricately.^[9] Marshall McLuhan\u2019s Understanding Media encouraged Muniz to explore perception in the media through abstraction and manipulating the components of the image.^[8] He cites the mosaics in a church in Ravenna as one of his influences and is also a self-proclaimed student of Buster Keaton.^[10] He decided to become an artist after seeing the works of the Postmodernists Cindy Sherman and Jeff Koons.^[7] Muniz, like both of these artists, reworks popular imagery in his work. Muniz says that he does not believe in originals, but rather believes in individuality.^[10] Muniz works to re-purpose themes and showcase them in a different light for the viewer.^[2]

Vik Muniz with his Perfect Strangersphotographs, a project for MTA on 72nd Street, 2016

Muniz is best known for recreating famous imagery from art history and pop culture with unexpected, everyday objects, and photographing them. For example, Muniz's Action Photo, After Hans Namuth (From Pictures of Chocolate), a Cibachrome print, is a Bosco Chocolate Syrup recreation of one of Hans Namuth's photographs of Jackson Pollock in his studio. The monumental series Pictures of Cars (after Ruscha) is his social commentary of the car culture of Los Angeles utilizing Ed Ruscha's 60's Pop masterpieces rendered from car ephemera. Muniz often works on a large scale and then he destroys the originals of his work and only the photo of his work remains.^[10]

Muniz has spoken of wanting to make "color pictures that talked about color and also talked about the practical simplification of such impossible concepts." He also has an interest in making pictures that "reveal their process and material structure," and describes himself as having been "a willing bystander in the middle of the shootout between structuralist and post-structuralist critique."

Muniz says that when he takes photographs, he intuitively searches for "a vantage point that would make the picture identical to the ones in my head before I\u2019d made the works," so that his photographs match those mental images. He sees photography as having "freed painting from its responsibility to depict the world as fact."

In Muniz's earthworks series, Pictures of Earthworks, show a strong resemblance to the 1970s Earthworks movement. However unlike the Earthworks movement, that were influenced by ancient cultures, Muniz's series shows distinct human impact on nature.^[11]

Political and social themes[edit]

In addition to sculpting, Muniz experiments with drawing and photography, which is seen in the series Sugar Children, featured in the Museum of Modern Art's New Photography 13 show, alongside Rineke Dijikstra, An-My Le, and Kunié Sugiura, in 1997. In Sugar Children, Muniz photographed the families that worked on sugar plantations on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. Beginning with Polaroids of several of the children of plantation workers, Muniz "drew" the images by sprinkling sugar on black paper and rephotographed these compositions. This series was met with criticism, where scholars have pointed out that he photographs of subjects continuing to live in poverty and yet can make upwards of 5 figures on these works at auction.^[7]

After his Pictures in Garbage series, Muniz donated the profits, close to $50,000, from the Marat (Sebastiao) to the workers collective after it was auctioned in the UK. He also tries to make art more accessible through the use of common materials, because of his belief that the art world should not be just for the elite.^[12] Muniz stated in the documentary Waste Land, "I'm at this point in my career where I'm trying to step away from the realm of fine arts because I think it's a very exclusive, very restrictive place to be. What I want to be able to do is to change the lives of people with the same materials they deal with every day."^[7]

Publications[edit]

• Clayton Days \u2013 Published by Frick Art & Historical Center, 2000. ISBN 0970342500 ^[13]
• Jelly, Garbage + Toys: Making Pictures with Vik Muniz \u2013 Published by Harry N. Abrams, 2017. ISBN 1419725750 ^[14]
• Natura Pictrix : Interviews and Essays on Photography \u2013 Published by New York : Edgewise, 2003. ISBN 189320717X ^[15]
• Vik Muniz: Model Pictures \u2013 Published by The Menil Foundation, 2002. ISBN 9780939594535 ^[16]
• Vik Muniz: Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primer. \u2013 Published by Aperture, 2005. ISBN 9781931788403 ^[16]
• Vik Muniz: Verso \u2013 Published by Verlag für moderne Kunst, 2019 ISBN 9782330004576 ^[5][16]

Solo exhibitions (selected)[edit]

To see the full list of selected solo exhibitions, visit his website

• 2016: Vik Muniz: Verso. Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands. June 9 \u2013 September 4.^[17]
• 2015: Vik Muniz: Poetics of Perceptions. Taubman Museum of Art, VA. June 13 \u2013 September 12, 2015.^[18]
• 2015: Vik Muniz: Mas Acá de la Imagen. Museo de La Universidad Tres de Febrero- Buenos Aires, Argentina. May 21, 2015 ^[19]
• 2014: Vik Muniz: Pictures of Anything. Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel. March 27 \u2013 July 21, 2014.^[20]
• 2013: Vik Muniz: Espelhos de Papel. Nara Roesler Gallery. São Paulo, Brazil. Feb 4 \u2013 November 5.^[21]
• 2012: VIK. Centro de Arte Contemporánea de Málaga, Málaga, Spain, September 7 \u2013 December 2.^[22]
• 2009: Vik. Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP). São Paulo, Brazil. April 25 \u2013 July 19.^[23]
• 2008: Vik Muniz. Arndt & Partner, Berlin, Germany. October 29 \u2013 December 20.^[24]
• 2007: Imaginary Prisons, G. B. Piranesi and Vik Muniz. National Gallery of Victoria. Melbourne, Australia. April 19 \u2013 September 30.^[25]
• 2007: Vik Muniz Reflex. P.S. 1. MoMA. Long Island City, NY. February 11 \u2013 May 7.^[26]
• 2006: Vik Muniz Reflex. Pérez Art Museum Miami. Miami, Florida. February 10 \u2013 May 28.^[27]
• 2002: Vik Muniz: Model Pictures, The Menil Collection, Houston. February 22 \u2013 June 9.^[28][29]
• 2000: Clayton Days. The Frick Art & Historical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. September 8 \u2013 October 29.^[30][31]
• 1999: Vik Muniz. Centre national de la photographie, Paris, France. November 17 \u2013 January 10, 2000.^[32]
• 1998: Seeing is Believing. International Center of Photography, New York, NY.^[33][34]
• 1996: The Sugar Children. Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, New York, NY.^[35]

Curatorial projects[edit]

• Buzz. Curated by Vik Muniz, Galeria Nara Roesler (Roesler Hotel #21), São Paulo, Brazil. December 1, 2012 \u2013 February 16, 2013.^[36]
• Rio de Janeiro Art Week, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. July 22 \u2013 29, 2010.^[1]
• Robert Mapplethorpe. Curated by Vik Muniz. Fortes Vilaça Gallery. São Paulo, Brazil. March 4 \u2013 April 9, 2009.^[1]
• Artist\u2019s Choice: Vik Muniz, Rebus. MoMA \u2013 Museum of Modern Art. New York, NY. December 11, 2008 \u2013 February 23, 2009.^[37]
• Haptic: Three Brazilian and Three Japanese Artists. Tokyo Wonder Site. Hongo, Tokyo, Japan. November 22, 2008 \u2013 January 12, 2009.^[1]
• Robert Mapplethorpe. Curated by Vik Muniz. Fortes Vilaça Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil. March 4 \u2013 April 9, 2006.^[1]
• Identity V. Curated by Hiroshi Minamishima. Nichido Contemporary Art. Tokyo, Japan. June 26 \u2013 July 25, 2005.^[1]
• L\u2019Empire bresilien et ses photograhes: collections de la Bibliotheque nationale du Brésil et de L\u2019Institute Moreira Salles. \u201cL\u2019horizont Perdu.\u201d Musée d\u2019Orsay, Paris. 2005.^[1]
• Vik Muniz. Curated by Miguel Fernandez-Cid. Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art. Indianapolis, IN. February \u2013 March, 2003.^[1]
• Making it Real. Catalogue ed. Independent Incorporated, NY. ICI \u2013 Independent Curators International, 1997 (traveling exhibition).^[38]

Awards[edit]

• 2013 \u2013 Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.^[39]
• 2010 \u2013 Honored with the Ordem do Ipiranga by the governor José Serra. São Paulo, Brazil, March 17.^[40]
• 2009 \u2013 Honored with the Medalha da Inconfidência by the governor of Minas Gerais, Mr. Aécio Neves. Minas Gerais, Brazil, April 21.^[1]
• 2009 \u2013 Honored with the Prêmio Cidadão Carioca by the State of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.^[1]
• 2008 \u2013 Honored at CITYarts\u2019 40th Anniversary sponsored by Dr. Miriam & Sheldon G. Adelson, Candia Fisher, Winston Fisher, and chaired by Jane Holzer. New York, NY.^[1]
• 2007 \u2013 Society for News Design Annual Creative Competition Award of Excellence in the category of Magazine Cover Design for the cover of The New York Times Magazine.^[1]
• 2005 \u2013 Premio Villa de Madrid de Fotografía \u201cKaulak" awarded by the Ayuntamiento de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.^[40]
• 2005 \u2013 National Artist Award granted by the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Aspen, Colorado.^[1]
• 1999 \u2013 Líderes Latinoamericanos para el Nuevo Milenio. CNN Time. NY, USA.^[1]
• 1998 \u2013 Best Photography Exhibition, Second Place: Vik Muniz: Seeing is Believing. Awarded by The International Center of Photography and curated by Charles Stainback.^[1]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Official website
• Video interview with Vik Muniz on Equivalents (The Museum of Modern Art)
• Goldberg, Vicki (September 25, 1998). "It's a Leonardo? It's a Corot? Well, No, It's Chocolate Syrup". New York Times Art Review. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
• "Beggars \u2013 Vik Muniz". Cabinet magazine (3). Summer 2001. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
• Magill, Mark (Fall 2000). "Interview with Vik Muniz". BOMB (73). Retrieved 25 June 2013.
• Vik Muniz on IMDb