CURATORSHIP: Arthur Ollman

MARCO presents a retrospective of the renowned contemporary artist Vik Muniz (São Paulo, Brazil, 1961), one of the most important, innovative, and creative artists of our time. Muniz has transformed his work into a type of art that plays with the viewer’s perception: classical paintings and photographs of images that he constructs himself by combining a pop-like approach to subject matter with a painterly perspective regarding unconventional processes and materials, including sugar, ketchup, diamonds, magazine clippings, chocolate syrup, dust, trash, and more recently individual grains of sand and bacterial microorganisms, carefully constructing 3D images before photographing them.

His large-scale photographs often reference iconic images from popular culture and art history, tapping into our collective memory while challenging the viewer’s perception. Famous for creating what he calls “photographic deliriums,” his works appear traditional at first glance, but upon closer inspection, viewers realize that the original images are made with unexpected materials in a play of perspective and scale. Examples include a double Mona Lisa made with peanut butter and jelly; a photograph of Jackson Pollock made from chocolate; Caravaggio’s Medusa recreated with spaghetti and tomato; and Botticelli’s Venus crafted from scrap materials. That revelatory moment, when one thing transforms into another, is of deep fascination for Muniz.