VikMuniz

Vik Muniz at Dirimart Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey, February 2 – March 11

Dirimart is pleased to announce Vik Muniz’s first solo exhibition in Istanbul. The exhibition brings together works from his internationally acknowledged “Metachrome,” “Pictures of Magazine,” “Postcards from Nowhere,” and “Repro” series.

Having grown interest in the photographic representations of his sculptural works in the early steps of his career, Brazilian artist Vik Muniz eventually focuses mainly on photography. Indeed the artist believes that consuming images and communicating through them create a tension between the object and its photographic representation, and make interaction with images complicated for individuals.

Muniz incorporates the use of familiar objects harvested from various periods of pop culture and art history to create bold, ironic, and often deceiving imagery. His practice reflects two main characteristics of postmodern photography: appropriation and material based setup. Taking familiar images as reference point, the artist manipulates the way we perceive images by recreating them in unusual ways. Muniz reinterprets the images with the repetition of humorous and sometimes distressing units such as caviar, chocolate syrup, diamonds, dry pigment, dust, garbage, magazine shreds, paper hole-punches, sugar, thread, and toys.

Exploring the painterly process and the materiality, “Metachrome” series concentrates on materials of a painting, compelling the viewer to consider the basis of its making and coloring. “Pictures of Magazine” series recomposes the small pieces torn from various art, fashion, and news magazine pages in order to recreate the image of historically significant paintings, thus exposes their extensive details. In “Postcards from Nowhere,” the artist reconstructs the most stereotypical representation of a specific place by using vintage postcards from his collection shredded and collaged. These highly intimate relics create bold new imagery magnified to a staggering scale. Lastly, the series “Repro” where the art historical works are recreated composing advertising and printed materials of museums offers a relook to the artwork that dominates the result.