Product Details
Hardcover
144 pages
Aperture
Published 2005
From Publishers Weekly
Muniz's cockeyed account of his life and art, when it doesn't sidetrack into irritating displays of the artist's egotism, shines with an inventive charm. Chronicling his rise from poor Brazilian immigrant to highly successful New York artist, the volume is beautifully designed, with the pleasing heft of a high school textbook, and packed with illustrations. Since the early 1990s, Muniz has created densely referential photographs of his own drawings and collages. These generally involve some kind of conceptual trickiness about representations of representations;a copy of a Cézanne still life, for example, composed of tiny circles punched out of magazines, or a recreation in chocolate syrup of a famous photograph of Jackson Pollack. The book is also a mini-museum of the wide-ranging obsessions that fuel Muniz's work, with images drawn from art and science and quirky sidebar quotations from the likes of Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau and, yes, Vik Muniz. But the goofy appeal of Muniz's work makes it worth enduring his displays of self-regard. Who could resist his sublimely silly notion of skywriting a childlike drawing of a cloud? Despite all the distracting excesses of Muniz the writer, this volume is a graphically sumptuous;and appropriately whimsical;showcase for Muniz the artist. (Sept.)
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Book Description
An American artist of Brazilian origin, Vik Muniz has come to stand out as one of the most articulate and innovative artists of his generation, equally at home working with images of chocolate sauce, spaghetti marinara, or the detritus of hole punchers.
In doing so, he has carved out a unique niche within contemporary photography: one of trickster and philosopher as well as creator of compelling and delightful images. Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primer is a privileged, guided tour of the contents of Muniz's pyrotechnic imagination. The collection of essays Muniz contributes walks us through each of his major series, and unveils the thinking and historical influences behind each image.
About the Author
Vik Muniz was born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1961. He currently lives and works in New York City. He is tremendously prolific, having had five major international solo shows in the U.S., Spain, Japan, Italy, and Brazil in the past year alone. He is the subject of a recent documentary film, The Worst Possible Illusion, which aired in film festivals and on PBS. |
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