Vik Muniz
Economics/Commerce
Rachel Semanski


About the Artist
-Born in 1961 in Sao Paulo, Brazil
-Lives and works in NYC and Rio De Janeiro
-Initially a sculptor, grew an interest in photography

 

His Work
-Incorporates the use of textured objects such as diamonds, sugar, thread, chocolate syrup and garbage in his practice to create bold, ironic, and often deceiving imagery
-His work is an alternative to photography
-Inspired mostly by pop culture and art history
-Uses a wide range of materials such as powdered pigment, dust, garbage, food; he photographs them and then destroys them so that they only exist as photographs

Website
-The website is well organized and much is said about each of his works
-There's a description about his work in the exhibition shows, but most of his series shown on the site are just images and the title of the series
-Not much is said how the images were created on his website, which makes me upset and lost when I view them
http://vikmuniz.net/

Pictures of Chocolate
-This series includes a number of images traced in chocolate
-He regulates the amount of chocolate used in every section to create depth and the illusion of light
-1997
 
Pictures of Holes
-He takes sheets of paper and creates an images with only creating holes from the pencil, it's as if you could use this series as a connect the dots activity
-1997
 
Pictures of Clouds
-He takes images of the Manhattan skyline and draws a cloud where the solid, clear sky is
-2001
 
Pictures of Junk
-Muniz worked with garbage; rusty toys, bike tires, and crushed soda cans to name a few
-It emphasizes on living environments
-2006
 
Sand Castle
-Not much is said about this series
-I believe it is a zoomed in picture of a sand particle double exposed with an image of a massive castle on the sand particle.
- Sand. Castle. Castle on sand.
-2014
 
My Views
-The Pictures of... series are my favorite
-A lot is said about those series as an artist
-It's not the same as traditional photography, but it works as photography
-Pictures are being created by real life materials where photography is images of real life materials

Question
-Do you think Vik Muniz's work is real photography?