Overview

Vik Muniz, born in São Paulo in 1961, is renowned for his unique employment of a wide range of materials, including dust, sugar, chocolate, diamonds, caviar, toys, junk, scrap metal, dry pigment, vintage postcards and magazine shreds, to reconstruct images that tap into the viewer’s subconscious visual repository and ask us to reconsider the familiar imagery in its altered form. His expansive practice explores how we are influenced by and derive meaning from images, examining the relationship between reality and representation, order and chaos, individual and collective memory, as well as the interaction between the whole and its constituent parts.

 

Muniz began his artistic career upon arriving in New York in 1983, holding his first solo exhibition in 1988. Muniz’s work has been exhibited in prestigious institutions worldwide, including the International Center of Photography, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Menil Collection, Houston; Museu de Arte Moderna São Paulo, São Paulo; Museu de Art Moderna, Rio de Janeiro; Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome; Irish Museum of Contemporary Art, Dublin; Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv; and Long Museum, Shanghai. In 2001 he represented the Brazilian Pavilion at the 49th Venice Biennale. Muniz is the subject of an Academy Award nominated documentary film entitled Waste Land (2010) and serves as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. His public art installation commissioned by the MTA Arts & Design for the 72nd street Second Avenues Subway station, New York, opened in 2016. He was a creative director of the Rio 2016 Paralympics opening ceremony. Muniz’s work features in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the Tate Modern, London.

 

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Works
  • Vik Muniz, Spatial Concept, Attese, after Lucio Fontana (Pictures of Pigment), 2008
    Spatial Concept, Attese, after Lucio Fontana (Pictures of Pigment), 2008
  • Vik Muniz, The Birth of Venus, after Botticelli (triptych) (Pictures of Junk), 2008
    The Birth of Venus, after Botticelli (triptych) (Pictures of Junk), 2008
  • Vik Muniz, Mappa del Mondo, after Alighiero Boetti (Pictures of Pigment), 2009
    Mappa del Mondo, after Alighiero Boetti (Pictures of Pigment), 2009
  • Vik Muniz, The Sower, after Van Gogh, 2011
    The Sower, after Van Gogh, 2011
  • Vik Muniz, Brillo Box, after Andy Warhol (Pictures of Magazines), 2015/2022
    Brillo Box, after Andy Warhol (Pictures of Magazines), 2015/2022
  • Vik Muniz, Metachrome (Broadway Boogie Woogie, after Piet Mondrian), 2016
    Metachrome (Broadway Boogie Woogie, after Piet Mondrian), 2016
  • Vik Muniz, Hermitage Museum (The Goldfish, after Matisse) (Repro), 2016
    Hermitage Museum (The Goldfish, after Matisse) (Repro), 2016
  • Vik Muniz, Metachrome (Homage to the Square: Glow, after Joseph Albers), 2016
    Metachrome (Homage to the Square: Glow, after Joseph Albers), 2016
  • Vik Muniz, Museum of Modern Art (The Red Studio, after Henri Matisse) (Repro), 2020
    Museum of Modern Art (The Red Studio, after Henri Matisse) (Repro), 2020
  • Vik Muniz, American Horse, Wasechum Tashunka, Oglala Sioux Chief (Legal Tender), 2024
    American Horse, Wasechum Tashunka, Oglala Sioux Chief (Legal Tender), 2024
  • Vik Muniz, Oleanders, after Vincent van Gogh (Brushstrokes), 2025
    Oleanders, after Vincent van Gogh (Brushstrokes), 2025
  • Vik Muniz, Monica Vitti (Pictures of Diamonds), 2004
    Monica Vitti (Pictures of Diamonds), 2004
  • Vik Muniz, Brooklyn Bridge (Postcards from Nowhere), 2015
    Brooklyn Bridge (Postcards from Nowhere), 2015
  • Vik Muniz, Belvedere Museum (The Kiss after Klimt) (Repro), 2017
    Belvedere Museum (The Kiss after Klimt) (Repro), 2017
  • Vik Muniz, Guernica, after Pablo Picasso 3 (Surfaces), 2022
    Guernica, after Pablo Picasso 3 (Surfaces), 2022
  • Vik Muniz, Girl before a Mirror, after Pablo Picasso (Surfaces), 2023
    Girl before a Mirror, after Pablo Picasso (Surfaces), 2023
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