Vik Muniz

dublin | arts and media | event notice Monday May 10, 2004 01:30 by Michelle Geoghegan

Art Exhibition

The Brazilian/American artist exhibits in Ireland for the first time at the Irish Museum of Modern Art

I don't know how to start explaining his work. As he himself said his work defies categorisation, which is a good thing, except for curators and critics who like to stick artists into their designated boxes. Is it sculpture, painting, drawing or photography? Who cares? Is it good? Yes it's excellent, probably the best exhibition I've ever been to in Ireland. I don't remember ever coming out of a gallery feeling so exhilarated. I walked around the show with a smile on my face and a warm feeling inside. So what kind of art could induce these feelings?

His art is like magic. He creates illusions in which the viewer has to figure out what is going on. The exhibition consists almost entirely of enlarged photographs but are so much more than 'normal' photography. His art is deceptive if you're close up or far away. Too close to the image you have no idea what it is, too far away you don't know how he did it. He said, “I like to make people walk away from the pictures to make them come closer to what they actually mean”. But his art isn't simple visual trickery. The actual materials he uses is often as significant as the image itself. For example he used sugar to depict children who worked on sugar plantations. He spent a summer with the kids and one day while drinking his sweetened coffee, he wondered how he could represent the memory of his times with them. Then he realised he was consuming their sweetness and hit upon the idea that was to turn into the Sugar Children Series. Another example is where he fashioned good old Mona Lisa (after Warhol) in jelly and peanut butter. An obvious play on the consumption of images. A further aspect to his work is that of perception. He isn't interested in making people believe in something but to make them aware of how much they want to believe. There is a documentary that goes along with the exhibition in which he talks about his wire drawings; “the perception of a flower drawn with wire either looks like a two dimensional pencil drawing or just a three dimensional piece of wire but it's never both”. And that's what the experience is like. It's hard to accept that a photograph of something three dimensional (wire) which is made to look like a 3D object is actually a two dimensional photograph of a two dimensional drawing which represents a 3D object. He cited a saying in the documentary, “a photograph never lies but photographers do”.

He explains his work much better than I could in the documentary which is a piece of art in its own right. It follows him as he retraces his humble beginnings and the making of some of his art projects. It's an interesting and funny insight into the man behind the art. One classic example is where he designs the food at one of his openings to look like actual plates and cutlery. Of course everyone's waiting for the food until he takes a bite out of a plate. I think that highlights an important point about what the art is about. If someone was curious enough they would have seen that the plates weren't ceramic and discovered the illusion. His art makes me realise that things aren't always what they seem and with a bit of curiosity and intelligence illusions can be demystified. I think that attitude applies to everything in life. Muniz's art requires that attitude in the viewer which makes it so much fun unless you're lazy and resort to reading the label first. But the label doesn't always reveal the illusion, sometimes it makes you aware that there is an illusion in a seemingly straightforward image. He leaves it completely up to the viewer to work it out like in the Two Cows photograph where there's only one cow! Work it out for yourself when you go see the exhibition.

The exhibition runs at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, in the New Galleries building until June 13th. Ireland is only one of two countries in Europe in which his work is being shown this year. So it's a more than usual privilege that his work can be experienced by Irish people. And thats why I'm writing this review, because it deserves to be experienced by as many people as possible. By the way it's free, although donations are very welcome. For info on how to get there, see below.


Irish Museum of Modern Art, Royal Hospital, Military Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8.
It is a 5 minute walk from Heuston station and the exhibition closes everyday at 5.15
Telephone +353-1-612 9900 Website http://www.modernart.ie
http://www.vikmuniz.net