Vik Muniz

Vik Muniz might be billed as a photographer, and photographs are generally the end product of his work. But in another age he might have been an alchemist, transforming base lead into refined gold. In Vik’s case, lead has been replaced by light. He is clearly a visual artist who tinkers equally with light and the mechanisms of perception that decipher the messages light conveys. He tricks the eye to reveal the tricks the eye itself can play and how that trickery has been used by “shamans, priests, artists, and con men” throughout history to evoke both power and belief. Vik works with the most rudimentary materials- sugar, soil, string, wire, chocolate syrup- to reconstruct images that we carry in a vast collective reservoir of visual memory. The quality of his draftsmanship with these rude materials displays a gift for bringing brilliance and humor to the commonplace – not unlike the physical genius of Charlie Chaplin, or Buster Keaton. Vik photographs these images, and then discards the originals, so that we are left with a tantalizing representation of the illusion he has created. – Mark Magill

Vik Muniz was born in Sao Paolo, Brazil; he lives and works in New York City. Internationally exhibited, Muniz’ work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Contemporary Art – Los Angeles, The Menil Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts – Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts – Houston, the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Gallery, and the Tel Aviv Museum, among others. In 1998 ICP organized a touring exhibit, Vik Muniz – Seeing is Believing, which was also published as a book. Other books by Muniz include Model Pictures, Clayton Days, and Natura Pictix: Interviews and Essays on Photography.