Vik Muniz
February 28 - August 21, 2016
Object labels from the exhibition
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- 11,000 Yards (The Helmingham Dell, after John Constable), from the Pictures of Thread series, 1999
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- 20,000 Yards (Castle at Bentheim, after Jacob Van
Ruisdael), from the Pictures of Thread series,
1999
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- 16,200 Yards (Le Songeur, after Corot), from the Pictures of Thread series, 1996
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Faucet, from the Pictures
of Wire series, 1994
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- The White Shirt, from the
Pictures of Wire series, 1995
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Brooklyn Scene, from the
Pictures of Wire series, 1994-1995
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Paper and Wire I, from the
Pictures of Wire series, 1995
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Cloud Cloud Manhattan, from
the Pictures of Clouds series, 2002
- Gelatin silver print
- Galerie Xippas, Paris
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- Van Gogh's Bed, from the
Pictures of Wire series, 1996
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Relaxation, from the Pictures
of Wire series, 1994
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Early in his career, Muniz became interested in combining
disparate media in his photographs, aiming to temporarily disorient viewers.
His earliest forays into this area involved line drawing. His Pictures
of Wire series -- photographs of wire sculptures printed on matte paper
-- at first appear to be pencil drawings, revealing their true form only
on closer inspection. Likewise, the densely layered yards of sewing thread
used to re-create celebrated landscapes in Pictures of Thread mimic
the line quality of etchings.
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- Hands, from the Pictures
of Soil series, 1997
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Cloud Cloud Arizona, from
the Pictures of Clouds series, 2000
- Chromogenic print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Cloud Cloud 59th Bridge,
from the Pictures of Clouds series, 2002
- Gelatin silver print
- Galerie Xippas, Paris
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- Cloud Cloud San Diego, from
the Pictures of Clouds series, 2008
- Gelatin silver print
- Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
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- Cloud Cloud Tampa, from the
Pictures of Clouds series, 2006
- Gelatin silver print
- Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
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- After Richard Serra, "Prop," 1968, installed
at the Whitney Museum in "Contemporary American Sculpture: Selection
2," April 4-May 5, 1969, from the
Pictures of Dust series, 2000
- Dye destruction print
- Galerie Xippas, Paris
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- Cloud Cloud Miami, from the
Pictures of Clouds series, 2008
- Gelatin silver print
- Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
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- For his series Pictures of Clouds, Muniz took
the idea of combining drawing and photography to a playful extreme. He
hired skywriters to draw cartoonish pictures of clouds in the skies above
cities. The resulting photographs simultaneously fulfill and upend our
expectations.
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- Double Mona Lisa (Peanut Butter and Jelly), from the After Warhol series, 1999
- Chromogenic print
- Galerie Xippas, Paris
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- Old Cheyenne, from the Monads
series, 2003
- Chromogenic print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Toy Soldier, from the Monads
series, 2003
- Chromogenic print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- In his series Monads, Muniz began to work on a
much larger scale than he had in his previous work, using recognizable
objects as his medium. Struck by the profound sadness in a portrait of
a child soldier during the Civil War, Muniz decided to re-create the photograph
out of plastic soldiers. He assembled a distorted version of the image
on the floor and photographed it from an angle to correct the perspective.
As a result, some toy soldiers appear vastly larger than others, though
they were all the same size. The f inal work is presented as a triptych
with depictions of a horse and an American Indian, recalling subjects common
to toy figurines.
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- Horse, from the Monads
series, 2003
- Chromogenic print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Action Photo (after Hans Namuth),
from the Pictures of Chocolate series, 1998
- Dye destruction print
- Galerie Xippas, Paris
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- Fallingwater (Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. Residence), from the Pictures of Chocolate series, 2009
- Dye destruction print
- Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
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- Individuals, from the Pictures
of Chocolate series, 1998
- Dye destruction print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Big James Sweats Buckets,
from the Sugar Children series, 1996
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Jacynthe Loves Orange Juice,
from the Sugar Children series, 1996
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- São Paulo, from the
Postcards from Nowhere series, 2014
- Chromogenic print
- Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo
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- Binoculars, from the Pictures
of Soil series, 1998
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Lil Calist Can't Swim, from
the Sugar Children series, 1996
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Tenten's Weed Necklace, from
the Sugar Children series, 1996
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Valicia Bathes in Sunday Clothes,
from the Sugar Children series, 1996
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
- Valentine, The Fastest, from
the Sugar Children series, 1996
- Gelatin silver print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Leda and the Swan, after Leonardo da Vinci, from the Pictures of Junk series, 2009
- Chromogenic print
- High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase through funds provided
by patrons of the Second Annual Collectors Evening, 2011, 2011.6
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- Muniz has achieved a sort of alchemy in his Pictures
of Junk series by transforming refuse-a substance we try to
hide or ignore -- into something beautiful and compelling. Seen
here from some forty feet above the floor, objects such as discarded hubcaps,
pipes, appliances, and tires become the building blocks for an imaginative
but ephemeral re-creation of Leonardo da Vinci's celebrated Renaissance
painting Leda and the Swan. Leonardo's painting is in fact known
only through copies, the original long lost. Muniz, with his characteristic
sharp wit, has thus created a copy of a copy.
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- Medusa Marinara, from the
After Warhol series, 1997
- Dye destruction print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Mahana No Atua (Day of the Gods), after Gauguin, from the Pictures of Pigment series, 2005
- Chromogenic print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Throughout the history of painting, pigment has served
as an essential material, ubiquitous but rarely seen in its raw form. In
Pictures of Pigment, Muniz pays homage to this universal material
by using it without the intervening presence of oil, egg, or any of the
substances that bind the powder into recognizable paint. The work of Paul
Gauguin, known for his use of vibrant and saturated colors, makes an appropriate
subject for the series. In the lower portion of Mahana No Atua,
Muniz has transformed an idyllic passage, showing a multitude of hues reflected
in water, into pools of dry, saturated pigment.
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- Self-Portrait (I Am Too Sad to Tell You, after Bas
Jan Ader), from the Rebus series, 2003
- Dye destruction print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Marat (Sebastião),
from the Pictures of Garbage series, 2008, printed 2011
- Chromogenic print
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
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- Muniz's Pictures of Garbage series exhibits his
dedication to social justice, as documented in the 2010 documentary film
Waste Land. He worked closely with a group of impoverished trash
pickers, or catadores, at a Brazilian garbage dump to create vast
assemblages modeled after famous historical artworks. The catadores
helped in selecting and arranging objects and served as models. Muniz
then sold works in the series to benefit the catadores. The reference
for this photograph is Jacques-Louis David's 1793 painting The Death
of Marat, which depicts the moment after the murder of Jean-Paul Marat,
a radical leader of the French Revolution. Through his powerful painting,
David transformed Marat into a political martyr. In Muniz's rendering,
Tião Santos, head of the catadores union, takes on
that role.
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- A Bar at the Folies-Bergère after Édouard
Manet, from the Pictures of Magazines 2 series,
2012
- Chromogenic print
- Ben Brown Fine Arts, London
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- Out of the refuse of modern life -- torn scraps of outdated
magazines, destined for obscurity -- Muniz has assembled an ode to one
of the first paintings of modern life. Édouard Manet's A Bar
at the Folies-Bergère, painted in 1882, explores the treachery
of nineteenth-century Parisian nightlife through the depiction of a bartender
attending to a male patron reflected in the mirror behind her. Muniz plays
on Manet's style, replacing Manet's visible brushstrokes with the frayed
edges of torn paper and lending the work immense visual interest.
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- Atlas (Carlão), from
the Pictures of Garbage series, 2008, printed 2011
- Chromogenic print
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
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- Brillo Box, from the Pictures
of Magazines 2 series, 2015
- Pigmented inkjet prints on aluminum
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
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- In 1964, Andy Warhol first displayed his Brillo Boxes,
identical replicas of commercial packaging, to the bewilderment
and delight of the art world. The work raised questions about what
art could be and the division between art and life. Here, Muniz
humorously pays tribute to this important art-historical moment.
He printed the photographs on sheets of aluminum and assembled them
into a box shape, mimicking both Warhol's work and the original
commercial object that inspired him.
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- The Gypsy (Magna), from the
Pictures of Garbage series, 2008, printed 2011
- Chromogenic print
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
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- After G. Richter, from the
Pictures of Color series, 2001
- Chromogenic print
- Galerie Xippas, Paris
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- The Pantone Matching System, invented in 1963, assigned
numerical values to colors, allowing people all around the world to replicate
exact hues. Muniz found this system of quantifying the qualities of colors
fascinating. For Pictures of Color, he reduced his source images
to grids of Pantone color samples.
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- Here, he pays homage to the German painter Gerhard Richter,
who painted a series of portraits of his daughter, Betty, in an exquisitely
delicate Photorealist style. Muniz conjures Richter's original through
an arrangement of scientifically precise Pantones that gives a pixelated
effect. The gridded structure of Muniz's work refers to Richter's Color
Charts series, hand-painted matrices of randomly selected tones. One
of these inspired a Pictures of Pigment work on view nearby.
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- The Bearer (Irmã),
from the Pictures of Garbage series, 2008, printed 2011
- Chromogenic print
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
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- Woman Ironing (Isis),
from the Pictures of Garbage series, 2008, printed 2011
- Chromogenic print
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
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- Jerusalem, from the Postcards
from Nowhere series, 2015
- Chromogenic print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Paris, from the Postcards
from Nowhere series, 2015
- Chromogenic print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- The Sower (Zumbi), from the
Pictures of Garbage series, 2008, printed 2011
- Chromogenic print
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
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- Mother and Children (Suellen),
from the Pictures of Garbage series, 2008, printed 2011
- Chromogenic print
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
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- Narcissus, after Caravaggio,
from the Pictures of Junk series, 2005
- Chromogenic print
- Galerie Xippas, Paris
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- Saturn Devouring One of His Sons, after Francisco
de Goya y Lucientes, from the Pictures of Junk
series,
- 2005
- Chromogenic print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- Zebra, after George Stubbs,
from the Pictures of Magazines 2 series, 2011
- Chromogenic print
- Galerie Xippas, Paris
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- Picking Flowers in a Field, after Mary Cassatt, from the Pictures of Magazines 2 series, 2012
- Chromogenic print
- Ben Brown Fine Arts, London
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- The Stone Breakers, after Gustave Courbet (Diptych), from the Pictures of Magazines series, 2013
- Chromogenic print
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
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- Woman and Bicycle, after Willem De Kooning, from the Pictures of Magazines series, 2012
- Chromogenic print
- Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo
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- Rouen Cathedral Façade, Morning Effect, after
Claude Monet, from the Pictures of Pigment
series, 2005
- Chromogenic print
- Courtesy of the artist
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- 256 Colors, after Richter,
from the Pictures of Pigment series, 2015
- Chromogenic print
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
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- Envelope (The Sarzedo Drawings),
from the Earthworks series, 2002
- Gelatin silver print
- Galerie Xippas, Paris
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