Vik Muniz — À propos — Slash Paris

Vik Muniz’ photographs appear to be like those of a prestidigitator or of a virtuoso whose actions at first sight are not related to photography. Working with heterogeneous materials such as sewing thread, jam, chocolate, ketchup, dust, toys, etc. which are chosen for their relationship to the image they depict, he reconstructs pictures which refer to art history, to the media and to our visual memory which has assembled them. By photographing these visual creations, Vik Muniz dissolves the original work and confronts us with an illusionary representation which is constructed artificially: Starting with the landscapes in sewing thread which take up well-known 19th century paintings, the fetish pictures of Warhol in chocolate shown for the first time in 1999 during an exhibition at the Xippas gallery, the “Pictures of Dust” made for his exhibition at the Whitney Museum, the “Pictures of Colour” and the “Pictures of Air” of the Biennale at Venice up to the pictures of diamonds and caviar from the series “Diamond Divas” and “Caviar Monsters” presented during his previous exhibition at the Xippas gallery in 2004.