Since the mid-1990s, Brazilian artist Vik Muniz has earned an international reputation for the photographic pieces he creates out of everyday materials. These images, inspired by current events, art history or famous figures, are familiar yet enigmatic. Initially taking the form of witty visual statements, his works question the way visual information is constructed, presented and then perceived by the viewer.
The exhibition contains 110 photographs, from 1988 to the present, from 27 series, including:
- Best of Life (1988-1990) – famous pictures from Life magazine drawn from memory and then photographed and reprinted
- Equivalents (1993) – simulations of cloud formations, made with lumps of cotton, inspired by Alfred Stieglitz’ cloud studies
- Pictures of Thread (1995-1999)– landscapes by Corot, Constable, Ruisdael and others, reproduced using thousands of metres of thread
- Sugar Children (1996)– portraits of children of Caribbeansugar cane workers, drawn in sugar
- Pictures of Chocolate (1997-2001)– re-creations, in chocolate syrup, of well-known images such as Hans Namuth’s portrait of Jackson Pollock working on a drip painting
- Earthworks(2002-2005) – large-scale line drawings in the earth or tabletop replicas, inspired by land art
- Pictures of Color (2001)– arrangements of Pantone paint chips to create the illusion of digital images with a pointillist look
- Pictures of Magazines (2003-2005)– portraits and famous artworks reproduced with millions of circular pieces of paper punched from magazines
- Monads(2003) – images created from figurines and plastic toys
- Pictures of Diamonds (2004)– portraits of stars fromHollywood’s “golden age,” like Elizabeth Taylor, produced out of diamonds
- Pictures of Junk(2005) – large-scale reconstructions of famous paintings, such as Caravaggio’s Narcissus, made with recycled materials
- Pictures of Pigment(2005)– masterpieces by Monet and Gauguin re-created in bright coloured pigment and blown up to monumental scale