Magazzino’s Gallery Talk series kicked off with internationally acclaimed Brazilian artist Vik Muniz on Sunday, May 6, 2018 at 4:00pm.
Vik Muniz (b. 1961) shared insights into his art practice, from the beginning of his career to his most recent works, in context with Magazzino Italian Art Foundation’s current exhibition Arte Povera. On this occasion, the artist’s Mappa del Mondo, after Alighiero Boetti (Pictures of Pigment), 2009, part of the Olnick Spanu Collection, was on display alongside Boetti’s Mappa, 1983. Muniz's work will remain on view at Magazzino until Monday, June 4, 2018.
Vik Muniz’s Mappa del Mondo, after Alighiero Boetti (Pictures of Pigment), is a chromogenic print mounted on aluminum, while Boetti’s Mappa is an embroidery handwoven by native women in Kabul, Afghanistan. In this discourse, Muniz gives the viewer the opportunity to see Boetti’s image in a different format, still aesthetically pleasing, however offering a commentary on the process of creating art itself. Muniz conceives his version by using various colorful pigments; he then photographs the work prior to destroying it, and the photograph becomes the final work.
In the book Fotografia Maledetta e Non (ed. Feltrinelli), 2015, Germano Celant states: Muniz seeks an interlocutory phase, that of a photographic image that exists for itself; a complete form that thrives from its materials’ energy and their informal articulations, which belong to the universe of the unintelligible daily life.
About Vik Muniz
Vik Muniz was born in Sao Paolo in 1961 and currently lives and works in both New York and Rio de Janeiro. His work has been exhibited in prestigious institutions worldwide. These include the International Center of Photography, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Menil Collection, Houston; Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro; Fundación Joan Miró, Barcelona; Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rome; Irish Museum of Contemporary Art, Dublin; Tel Aviv Museum, Israel; and Long Museum, Shanghai. His work is also featured in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Art Institute of Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and Tate, London.
In 2001, Muniz represented the Brazilian Pavilion at the 49th Venice Biennale. Vik Muniz is the subject of an Academy Award-nominated documentary film entitled Waste Land (2010) and serves as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.
