Selected Works
Born Vicente José de Oliveira Muniz in São Paulo, Brazil in 1961, Vik Muniz belonged to a working-class family and as a young man was shot in the leg whilst trying to break up a fight. He ended up using the compensation he received for his injuries to fund a trip to New York City, where he has lived and worked since the late 1980s. He began his career as a sculptor but gradually became more interested in photographic reproductions of his work, eventually turning his attention exclusively to photography.
Born Vicente José de Oliveira Muniz in São Paulo, Brazil in 1961, Vik Muniz belonged to a working-class family and as a young man was shot in the leg whilst trying to break up a fight. He ended up using the compensation he received for his injuries to fund a trip to New York City, where he has lived and worked since the late 1980s. He began his career as a sculptor but gradually became more interested in photographic reproductions of his work, eventually turning his attention exclusively to photography.
Muniz is an influential contemporary Brazilian artist best known for his complex photographic works. He incorporates a multiplicity of unlikely materials into this photographic process. Often working in series, Vik has used dirt, diamonds, sugar, string, chocolate syrup and garbage to create bold, witty and often deceiving images drawn from the pages of photojournalism and art history. His work has been met with both commercial success and critical acclaim, and has been exhibited worldwide. His solo show at MAM in Rio de Janeiro was second only to Picasso in attendance records; it was here that Vik first exhibited his “Pictures of Garbage Series” in Brazil.
Sourcing a wide variety of eclectic and found materials—chocolate, jelly, toys, and trash—Muniz recreates iconic art historical works and scenes from popular culture. By displaying the final piece as a photograph, he explores memory, perception, and the nature of images as represented in arts and communication.
In 2010, the artist starred in the documentary film Waste Land tracked the course of his project Pictures of Garbage (2008). The series of large-scale images was created with the help of catadores—the people who scour Rio’s sizable trash dump for recyclable materials. Muniz was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for his social activism, and the artist has had his work exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, and the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris, among others.
A photographer and self-described ‘low-tech illusionist’ Muniz has lectured at Harvard, Yale, the TED Conference and nearly every place where people are interested in creative concepts, and his work has been featured on the cover of the New York Times Magazine and filled the pages of countless other publications. Waste Land, the documentary film about his art project in a Brazilian trash dump, won the 2010 Sundance Audience Award for Best Film and was nominated for an Academy Award
Muniz currently lives and works between Brooklyn NY and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2018
Vik Muniz: Handmade. Xippas Gallery. Paris, France. September 8 – October 20.
Vik Muniz. Chrysler Museum of Art. Norfolk, Virginia. July 12 – October 14.
Vik Muniz: Verso. Belvedere Museum. Vienna, Austria. March 21 – June 17.
2017
Vik Muniz: Handmade. Nichido Contemporary Art, NCA. September 14 – November 4.
Vik Muniz: Handmade. Elba Benitez Gallery. Madrid, Spain. September 14 – November
Vik Muniz: Handmade. Rena Bransten Gallery. San Francisco, California. September 9 – October 28.
Vik Muniz. Afterglow: Pictures of Ruins. Palazzo Cini, Venice, Italy. April 24 – July 24.
Vik Muniz. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo. Monterrey, Mexico. March 10 – June 11.
Vik Muniz: Epistemes. Sikkema Jenkins & Co. New York, USA. February 23 – April 1.
Vik Muniz: Metachromes. Ben Brown Fine Arts. Hong Kong, China. January 18 – March 11.
2016
Vik Muniz: Metachromes. Ben Brown Fine Arts, London, UK. October 6 – November 12.
Vik Muniz: Handmade. Nara Roesler Gallery, Sao Paulo, Brasil. September 3 – November 5.
Vik Muniz. Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France. June 15 – August 28.
Vik Muniz. Mauritshuis, the Hague, Netherlands. June 9 – September 4.
Vik Muniz. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA. February 28, 2015 – May 29, 2016.
2015
Vik Muniz: Album. Ben Brown Fine Arts Hong Kong, China, January 16th – March 4th
Vik Muniz: Album. Xippas Gallery, Paris, France. June 6th – July 31st
Vik Muniz: Poetics of Perceptions. Lowe Art Museum, Miami. February 7th – April 19th,
Vik Muniz: Poetics of Perceptions. Taubman Museum of Art, VA. June 13-September 12, 2015.
Vik Muniz: Mas Acá de la Imagen. Museo de La Universidad Tres de Febrero- Buenos Aires, Argentina. May 21, 2015
Vik Muniz: Pictures of Anything -Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint Etienne Metropole. November 2015
2014
Vik Muniz: Poetics of Perception. Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, Virginia. January 31st – April 14th, 2014.
Vik Muniz: Mas Acá de la Imagen. Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC). Lima, Peru. January 23rd – April 13th, 2014.
Vik Muniz. Sikkema Jenkins, New York, New York. April 10th – May 10th, 2014.
Vik Muniz: Pictures of Anything. Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel. March 27th – July 21st, 2014.
Vik Muniz: Mas Acá de la Imagen. The Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito. May 24th – July 31st, 2014
Vik Muniz: The Size of the World. Santander Cultura Brasil. May 21 to August 10, 2014
Vik Muniz: Album. Les Rencontres d’Arles Photographie, Arles, France
Vik Muniz: Pictures of Anything. Long Museum, Shanghai, China, September 21 – November 1, 2014
Vik Muniz: Mas Acá de la Imagen. Galeria Nara Roesler, Rio de Janeiro, September 10 – October 11, 2014
Vik Muniz: Small. Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo October 24th – November 29, 2014
2013
Vik Muniz. Clayton Days | Revisited: A Project by Vik Muniz. The Frick Art & Historical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. July 13 – October 27.
Vik Muniz. Museo Banco de la República. Bogatá, Colombia. July 31 – October 28.
Vik Muniz. Nara Roesler Gallery. São Paulo, Brazil. April 2 – May 5.
2012
Vik Muniz. VERSO. St. Moritz Art Masters 2012. Protestant Church, St. Moritz, Switzerland. August 24 – September 2.
Vik Muniz. Ben Brown Fine Arts. Hong Kong, China. November 21 – February 22, 2013.
Vik Muniz. Elba Benitez Gallery, Madrid, Spain. November 15 -January 16, 2013.
Vik Muniz – Pictures of Magazine 2. Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, California, September 20 – November 10.
VIK. Centro de Arte Contemporánea de Málaga, Málaga, Spain, September 7 – December 2. (traveling exhibition)
VantagePoint X/Vik Muniz. Mint Museum Uptown, Charlotte, North Carolina. August 25 – April 28, 2013.
Vik Muniz – Pictures of Magazine 2. Xippas Gallery, Paris. France. June 9 – July 28.
2011
Vik Muniz. Le Musé Imaginaire. Collection Lambert en Avignon, Hôtel de Caumont & Église des Célestins, Avignon, France. December 11 – June 15, 2012.
Vik Muniz. Matrici italiane. 1º Festival di Cultura Brasiliana, Galleria Cortona, Palazzo Pamphilj, Rome, Italy. November 25 – December 16.
VIK. Museu Colecção Berardo. Lisbon, Portugal. September 21 – December 31. (traveling exhibition)
Vik Muniz. Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York. September 9 – October 15.
Vik Muniz 3D. Espaço Cultural Contemporâneo – ECCO, Brasília, Brazil. June 13 – August 21.
Relicário. Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil. March 1 – April 24.
Vik Muniz.Beyond the Boundary between Celebrated Painting and Photo. Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Gana Art Center, Seoul, Korea. February 11 – March 13.
2010
Vik Muniz. Xippas Arte Contemporaneo, Montevideo, Uruguay. December 15 – April 5, 2011.
Vik Muniz. Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan. October 22 – November 20.
Relicário. Casa de Cultura Laura Alvim, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. October 13 – December 5.
Vik Muniz. Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, California. September 9 – October 23.
Verso. Galeria Fortes Vilaça. São Paulo, Brazil. July 29 – September 11.
Vik Muniz. Museum of the University of Fortaleza/Unifor, Fundação Edson Queiroz, Ceará, Brazil. April 16 – August 8.
Leonard Drew and Vik Muniz. Sikkema Jenkins and Co. New York, NY. January 30 – March 6.