It's difficult to explain the installations or mediums of Vik Muniz. He doesn't fellow one genre. His works are a variety of mediums such as sculpting, earthworks cloudworks or sky writing, and everyday material. He is best known for arranging objects into beautiful portraits of works or photographs from past artists. His works are usually large taking up a whole room like this installation piece below or to several feet in height. He is best known for his use of non material items in his artworks.Muniz draws the outline of the image and then arranges trash or whatever forms to create a portrait.
One that is entirely different subject and media than this work from Wasteland is the landscape print from Hiroshige Fuji from the Sea of Satte, Gulf of Suruga, Number 23. He uses thick paper to and creates this piece in layers and the waves in the foreground. Muniz gives dimension almost a low relief found in stone. Texture and the vibrant colors give the landscape scene a fresh perspective.
Pictures of Paper Fuji from the Sea of Satta, Gulf of Suruga, Number 23, after Hiroshige 2009 Digital C-print 109 x 71 inches, edition of 6 |
Utagawa Hiroshige 36 Views of Mount Fuji- 23. The Sea off Satta circa 1858 Woodblock print
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The next medium he uses was for a promo for De Beers. What would one do with 10 million diamonds? For Muniz, he went for a glamorous depiction with his works Diamond Divas. This one is Sophia Loren (one of the biggest divas from the 1960s). Although this was for a promo, the portrait is Cibrachrome print which is mounted on aluminum. The black background emphasizes the diamonds and Sophia’s strong facial expression. It gives the viewer glam and status of famous women.
Vik Muniz, Sophia Loren (Diamond Divas), 2004
His meaningful pieces are his use of trash to make portraits. Pictures of Junk and the documentary Wasteland allow viewers to expand their concept of art. He uses junk in a grand scale to depict past artitst mediums. One of the world’s largest landfills is in his country Brazil. He wants viewers to know that junk can be used or altered so it can be used again such as for his high class installations. Muniz sketches famous painting and adds junk to recreate it three dimensionally. He adds space to the piece using the white floor and surrounds the negative space with the junk. He then photographs the entire picture. One can view the garbage is used to for the outline, shadow and facial expression. In the picture above, tires are added to hair and wire is used for the outline.
Pictures of JunkDigital c-print, edition of 6, 4 APs
55 x 40 inches
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