Brazilian artist Vik Muniz has been on our radar for quite some time. Partially because his work redefines the concepts of waste and the proper “mediums” in art, but mostly because his work is just plain fun. While some previous series have used medium as bizarre as dust, granulated sugar or melted chocolate, the prints exhibited at the 2013 New York Armory Show were created with the metal waste of the modern world.
Muniz is not only a master at recycling but at keeping his viewer completely off balance with his sense of scale. His 3 dimensional collages, whether made of scrap metal like the ones in the slideshow above, or with more “generalized garbage” as in the pieces depicted in the documentary The Waste Land, are orchestrated piece by piece from a 20 meter vantage point. For example, at first glance the hummingbird image looks as shimmeringly delicate as a Hupert Duprat/caddisworm collaboration, but wait! Are those paint cans, bed springs and automobile tire hubs I see? (I highly encourage everyone to follow the The Artsy.net link attached here, which allows viewers to blow up the images even more…)
Once the collages are painstakingly developed Muniz photographs them from his 2-story vantage point, presenting the prints themselves as the final works of art. The viewer’s sense of perspective are all thrown off-kilter but that level of discomfort forces us to acknowledge the materials that he’s using and their perceived value (or lack thereof) all the more.
Organikos 