VIK MUNIZ – PICTURES OF MAGAZINES 2
2014-09-29In this series I recreated icons from the history of art using images and text literally torn from books and magazines. Because of the material I used here the viewer must work much harder to “see” the reproduced painting. The playing field is leveled: image and material have equal importance, and even within the overall picture no specific component is privileged – a tabloid’s Scarlett Johansson snapshot, Klimt’s iconic portrait of Adele, a random bit of text, or a snippet of a Gauguin painting, all carry equal weight. This practice reflects contemporary life with its incessant influx of information, which leaves an endless stream of garbage in its wake. Here, the content of the stream becomes raw material in an act of renewal.
I see this series as a continuation of the “Pictures of Garbage” series, in which I used recycled garbage to make portraits of waste pickers. But here, rather than using physical garbage as my medium, I recycle mental “garbage” from the endless media onslaught of our culture to reproduce images that feel familiar, things we may have looked at but have never really seen. This is a quest to reconsider what we have left behind in our voracious pursuit of the new.
– Vik Muniz
Exhibition runs through to October 25th, 2014
Hezi Cohen Gallery
54 Wolfson Street
66042 Tel Aviv
Israel
