Vik Muniz began his career as a publicist in his home country of Brazil. His artistic career began in the 1980s, when he moved to New York, where he has lived ever since.
Muniz appropriates strategies from postmodern photography, although he prefers to relate his work to the long historical tradition of artistic copying. He uses particularly mediatic artworks that are readily familiar to a wide public, with a strong mythical element. In other words, he selects them not for their artistic value, but for their weight in the collective imagination. In his imitative interventions, he reinforces the original image using materials such as chocolate, sugar, powder, diamonds, jam, litter, toys, spaghetti, jigsaw pieces, pieces of art paper from fashion magazines, etc. He then photographs the result of this painstaking work and enlarges it. In this way, not only the images, but also the materials are immediately familiar to viewers, who then have to try to differentiate between the original and Muniz's additions, in a unique contemporary trompe l'oeil.
Vik Muniz has held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, USA, 1999); the Museum of Modern Art (New York, 1999); the University of Salamanca (2000) and the Centre National de la Photographie (Paris, 1999). His work has also been shown in group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum (New York, 2000); Museu de Arte Moderna (Salvador, Brazil, 2000); Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma (2003), Centre for Contemporary Art of Galicia (Santiago de Compostela, 2004); the Telefónica Foundation (Madrid, 2005); the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (Gateshead, UK, 2007 and 2017); MoMA PS1 (New York, 2007); the Musée d'Art Contemporain de Montréal (Canada, 2007); the Contemporary Art Centre of Malaga (2012); and the Monterrey Contemporary Art Museum (Mexico (2017). He represented Brazil at the Venice Biennale in 2001.
Vik Muniz began his career as a publicist in his home country of Brazil. His artistic career began in the 1980s, when he moved to New York, where he has lived ever since.
Muniz appropriates strategies from postmodern photography, although he prefers to relate his work to the long historical tradition of artistic copying. He uses particularly mediatic artworks that are readily familiar to a wide public, with a strong mythical element. In other words, he selects them not for their artistic value, but for their weight in the collective imagination. In his imitative interventions, he reinforces the original image using materials such as chocolate, sugar, powder, diamonds, jam, litter, toys, spaghetti, jigsaw pieces, pieces of art paper from fashion magazines, etc. He then photographs the result of this painstaking work and enlarges it. In this way, not only the images, but also the materials are immediately familiar to viewers, who then have to try to differentiate between the original and Muniz's additions, in a unique contemporary trompe l'oeil.
Vik Muniz has held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, USA, 1999); the Museum of Modern Art (New York, 1999); the University of Salamanca (2000) and the Centre National de la Photographie (Paris, 1999). His work has also been shown in group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum (New York, 2000); Museu de Arte Moderna (Salvador, Brazil, 2000); Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma (2003), Centre for Contemporary Art of Galicia (Santiago de Compostela, 2004); the Telefónica Foundation (Madrid, 2005); the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (Gateshead, UK, 2007 and 2017); MoMA PS1 (New York, 2007); the Musée d'Art Contemporain de Montréal (Canada, 2007); the Contemporary Art Centre of Malaga (2012); and the Monterrey Contemporary Art Museum (Mexico (2017). He represented Brazil at the Venice Biennale in 2001.