{"id":59531,"date":"2021-08-20T09:54:38","date_gmt":"2021-08-20T15:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=59531"},"modified":"2021-10-05T09:28:34","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T15:28:34","slug":"vik-muniz-extraordinary-interpretations-of-medium-scale-and-art-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/vik-muniz-extraordinary-interpretations-of-medium-scale-and-art-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Vik Muniz’ Extraordinary Interpretations of Medium, Scale and Art History"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Vik Muniz, “Double Mona Lisa (Peanut butter and Jelly), from the series After Warhol,” 1999, digital C print
49.6 x 61.4 x 1.9 inches, \u00a9 Vik Muniz \/ Galerie Xippas, Paris<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe medium is the message.\u201d<\/h4>\n

First coined by the Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan in 1964, this pithy phrase has dramatically shaped our understanding of postmodern theory, language and aesthetics. For artists like Vik Muniz, however, it is both a creed to uphold and an ideology to subvert.<\/h4>\n

In his \u201cphotographic delusions,\u201d Muniz captures mythical spaghetti mid-scream, commands toy soldiers to be submissive, and, in good taste, makes peanut butter and jelly appear refined. Of course, what a viewer first sees is the shrieking face of Medusa, a somber portrait of a soldier, and a striking double portrait of da Vinci\u2019s \u201cMona Lisa.\u201d The expectations brought to his works are simultaneously met and thwarted by packaging predictable messages in unpredictable mediums. And it is precisely this paradoxical quality that makes Vik Muniz\u2019s work extra<\/em>-ordinary.<\/h4>\n
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“A Bar at the Folies-Berg\u00e8re, after \u00c9douard Manet,” 2012, chromogenic print, 71 x 98.1 in., Ben Brown Fine Arts, London<\/p><\/div>\n

From his Pictures of Magazines <\/i>series, part of a large exhibit of the artist\u2019s works at the BYU Museum of Art, Muniz has playfully engaged some of the most iconic works in art history: Manet\u2019s \u201cA Bar at the Folies-Berg\u00e8re\u201d and Courbet\u2019s \u201cThe Stonebreakers\u201d each take up supersized portions upon the gallery wall in the final form of a chromogenic print. These famous images, among others, have been recreated in collage form. Muniz uses a palette of vintage print media to construct his stonebreakers, each magazine piece carrying its own connotational baggage into the whole. His print pigments are far from random; most are derived from sources that correspond thematically with the original subject: a mechanic at work, a belt of tools, human forms bent over in labor. What up close appears to be a cacophony of images, from afar creates an impressive copy of the world\u2019s most famous works.<\/h4>\n
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“Sandcastle #3,” from the Sandcastles series, 2013, chromogenic print, 74.6 x 88.1 in., Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York<\/p><\/div>\n

Scale, and our perception of it, is a dominant theme throughout the exhibition. Arguably an important but less obvious element than medium, the scale of each work is entirely unique, arbitrary, and imagined\u2014- neither imitative of the original\u2019s size nor true to Muniz\u2019s own creation. All that is left for us is the skewed photographic documentation that the artist has resized for our viewing pleasure. None of these\u00a0 pieces are \u201creal\u201d in the sense that we could interact with them as they actually exist \u2014 or once existed \u2014 in the world. One cannot help but become acutely aware of this fact when looking at a Vik Muniz\u2019 artwork. Whereas works from the Pictures of Magazines, Postcards from Nowhere<\/em>, and Sandcastles<\/em> series\u2019 are photographed and blown up, arriving at the museum in a larger-than-life state \u2014 in the Sandcastles<\/em> series, where Muniz has etched castles onto grains of sand, much, much larger\u2014 others, like the sites photographed in the Earthworks, Pictures of Junk<\/em>\u00a0and Pictures of Garbage<\/em> series are so grand that they could only be appreciated from a bird’s eye view. In Muniz\u2019s version of David\u2019s \u201cDeath of Marat,\u201d from Pictures of Garbage,<\/em>\u00a0 a chiaroscuro effect is achieved not by the contrast of light and its cast shadow, but by the juxtaposition of junk and bare soil. Clusters of flip flops, toilet seats, broken umbrellas and unwanted tarps throw the white corpse of Marat into high relief and comment on the state of the poverty-stricken catadores<\/em> (trash pickers) who assisted the artist in arranging the work onsite in his native Brazil.<\/h4>\n
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“Marat (Sebastiao),” 2008, chromogenic print, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York<\/p><\/div>\n

Although completely capable of generating original subject matter, Muniz litters the exhibit with replications of the great artists before him, begging the question, \u201cWhy do artists \u2018copy\u2019 works?\u201d There is, of course, a history of academic art training that would suggest that visiting a gallery to sketch masterpieces would be a vital step in a student\u2019s understanding of technique and serve as a point of departure when developing their own style. But, on the other end of the spectrum? Forgery?<\/h4>\n

But Muniz does not seem to be doing either of these things. By reinterpreting art history\u2019s best hits through a variety of unconventional mediums and startling scales, Muniz fathers the next generation in a genealogy of art objects. Be it Warhol, Goya, Caravaggio, Pollock, or Winogrand, each is honored, tested, and given new life through Muniz\u2019s 21st-century reinterpretation.<\/h4>\n
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“Valentine, The Fastest,” from the Sugar Children series, 1996, gelatin silver print, 22 x 19.3 in., courtesy of the artist<\/p><\/div>\n

We cannot understand these images by simply taking them at face-value, and yet this is the exercise the artist wishes to engage us in. Pictures of paper, wire, soil, ink, thread, diamonds, chocolate, raw pigment and caviar monsters \u2014 \u201cThat\u2019s all they are,\u201d he seems to tease. In true Whistleresque fashion, Muniz titles his works after the medium as if it is all he is concerned with seeing. Without discounting the remarkable skill required to conceive, collaborate, and create familiar images in unfamiliar forms, we would be remiss if we thought this was all there was to Muniz\u2019s work. The Sugar Children<\/em>, a modest series tucked behind the main entrance wall provides a profound example. With his meticulous attention to detail, Muniz uses grains of sugar to create portraits of children on the island of St. Kitts: \u201cBig James Sweats Buckets;\u201d \u201cValentine, the Fastest;\u201d \u201cTenten\u2019s Weed Necklace;\u201d \u201cJacynthe Loves Orange Juice;\u201d \u201cLil Calist Can\u2019t Swim;\u201d and \u201cValicia Bathes in Sunday Clothes.\u201d As carefree as their personalized titles and expressions may appear, these children are from families who labor on sugar cane plantations for little pay. By crafting the portraits out of the very substance that both provides and impoverishes them, Muniz reminds us that sometimes \u201cthe sweetest things in life can have bitter origins.\u201d<\/h4>\n

The medium is the message. The message is the medium.<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Vik Muniz: Extra-Ordinary<\/em>, Brigham Young University Museum of Art<\/a>, Provo, through Nov. 27.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe medium is the message.\u201d First coined by the Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan in 1964, this pithy phrase has dramatically shaped our understanding of postmodern theory, language and aesthetics. For artists like Vik Muniz, however, it is both a creed to uphold and an ideology to subvert. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1564,"featured_media":59539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/vik_muniz_06_double_mona_lisa.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 08:06:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1564"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59531"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59793,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59531\/revisions\/59793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}