Williams College
Museum of Art
15 Lawrence Hall Drive
413-597-2429
Williamstown
Labeltalk 2009: Vik Muniz
January 17-May 17, 2009

Labeltalk 2009: Vik Muniz, an exhibition that features ten Memory Renderings from contemporary artist Vik Muniz’s 1989-2000 series The Best of Life. These artworks were recently acquired by the museum for its collection.

Memory Renderings are photographs of drawings that Vik Muniz (Brazilian, born 1961) drew from his recollection of a photograph printed in The Best of Life, a book that featured iconic photographs from Life magazine between 1936 and 1972. Muniz photographed his drawings in soft focus to make them blurry and remove evidence of his hand. He also printed them through a half tone screen to simulate the pixilated quality of photographs published in a magazine–the format in which most people first encountered the images. The iconic images include the student standing in front of tanks in Tiananmen Square, soldiers raising the American flag in Iwo Jima, and John John saluting his father’s coffin.

Labeltalk highlights the rich teaching potential of art. Each Labeltalk presents artwork from the museum’s collection along with a publication that includes written responses by Williams faculty members from a variety of departments. This year, thirteen professors from the following departments participated: American studies, art, astronomy, computer science, economics, English, history, mathematics, psychology, religion, Russian, and theatre.

“The Labeltalk series is built on this very point: there is no single perspective from which to approach a work of art,” explains curator Elizabeth Gallerani. “Vik Muniz’s series has already been studied by courses in at least four different departments. With the layering of the artworks and their connection to cultural memory, these works are engaging on many levels, including artistic process, visual culture, and history, among others.”

Labeltalk 2009: Vik Muniz was organized by Elizabeth Gallerani, the Coordinator of Mellon Academic Programs. It is the seventh in a series originally created in 1995 with the support of a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project supports the museum’s mission to advance learning through lively and innovative approaches to art.

Vik Muniz, Action Photo, after Hans Namuth (Pictures of Chocolate), 1997, Cibachrome print, 60 x 48", Courtesy Vik Muniz, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York and the Estate of Hans, Namuth, VAGA New York.

Vik Muniz, Narcissus, after Caravaggio (Pictures of Junk), 2005, Chromogenic print, 96 x 72", Courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York City.

Vik Muniz, Saturn devouring one of his Sons, after Francisco de Goya Y Lucientes (Pictures of Junk), 2005, Chromogenic print, 96 x 72", Courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York City.

Musée d'art contemporain
de Montréal
185 Sainte-Catherine Ouest
514-847-6226
Montréal
Vik Muniz Exhibition: Reflex
October 4, 2007-January 6, 2008

Peanut butter, jam, chocolate, sugar, wire, dirt and diamonds are just a few of the astonishing range of materials used by artist Vik Muniz in the images he produces and then photographs.

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 Caribbean sugar 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 from Hollywood’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, and Pictures of Pigment (2005) — masterpieces by Monet and Gauguin re-created in bright coloured pigment and blown up to monumental scale.

Vik Muniz was born in 1961 in São Paulo, Brazil. He attended art classes in high school but did not go on to college. Instead, he plunged into the world of advertising, which left him with a lingering interest in the power and manipulation of images. He moved to the United States in 1984, and settled in New York in 1986. In 1988, having lost his copy of the book The Best of Life, he began drawing his favourite images from memory, and then photographing them. The questions this exercise raised about the nature of perception and the role of photography prompted him to focus on what the well-known art historian Ernst Gombrich termed the “art of illusion.” Muniz has worked in photography ever since, producing an incredible body of work that probes the nature of visual representation and allows him to create, as he says, “the worst possible illusion.” After an initial moment of recognition, the viewer quickly realizes that the images are not what they first seemed.

Since 1989, Muniz has exhibited widely, with solo exhibitions in highly prestigious institutions in New York, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona, Houston, Santiago de Compostela, Rome, Madrid and Dublin. He took part in the 24th Bienal de São Paulo in 1998, and represented Brazil at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001. He now divides his time between Rio de Janeiro and New York.

Vik Muniz: Reflex was organized by the Miami Art Museum, Florida, with support from MAM’s Annual Exhibition Fund.

Vik Muniz, Valicia Bathes in Sunday Clothes, (Sugar Children), 1996, Gelatin silver print, 14 x 11", Courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co.,
New York City.

Vik Muniz, Self-Portrait (Front) (Pictures of Magazines), 2003, 94 x 72", Courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York City.