Exhibition
Vik Muniz: Pictures of Magazines 2
–Press Release
The Rena Bransten Gallery is pleased to present a selection of photographs by Vik Muniz from his latest series, Pictures of Magazines 2.
In the original Pictures of Magazines Series, Muniz constructed portraits and still-lifes out of bits of colored paper hole-punched from magazines and arranged like paint dabs to form the images. In his new series, Muniz uses magazine images torn out in ragged patches to construct his content – people, still-lifes, objects, or architecture – in re-renderings of paintings from art history. By building up recognizable images from smaller but equally identifiable patches, the focus of one’s eyes shifts back and forth between the final forms and the clearly articulated parts that make them up. This continual focal shift from “big picture” to “little picture” energizes the forms so the contents appear to vibrate or glitter. That one’s eyes cannot resist the push-pull of optical forces plays into Vik’s long-standing interest in how the brain processes visual information. Once again, his genius in leading viewers to see things in a new way is perfectly represented in these new photographs.
Vik Muniz was born in 1961 in Sao Paolo, Brazil. His work has been exhibited internationally in institutions such as the Whitney Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janiero, Brazil; P.S. 1, New York; Tokyo Wonder Site, Tokyo, Japan; and the Museo d’Arte Contemporania Roma, Rome, Italy. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn and Rio de Janiero.
The Rena Bransten Gallery is pleased to present a selection of photographs by Vik Muniz from his latest series, Pictures of Magazines 2.
In the original Pictures of Magazines Series, Muniz constructed portraits and still-lifes out of bits of colored paper hole-punched from magazines and arranged like paint dabs to form the images. In his new series, Muniz uses magazine images torn out in ragged patches to construct his content – people, still-lifes, objects, or architecture – in re-renderings of paintings from art history. By building up recognizable images from smaller but equally identifiable patches, the focus of one’s eyes shifts back and forth between the final forms and the clearly articulated parts that make them up. This continual focal shift from “big picture” to “little picture” energizes the forms so the contents appear to vibrate or glitter. That one’s eyes cannot resist the push-pull of optical forces plays into Vik’s long-standing interest in how the brain processes visual information. Once again, his genius in leading viewers to see things in a new way is perfectly represented in these new photographs.
Vik Muniz was born in 1961 in Sao Paolo, Brazil. His work has been exhibited internationally in institutions such as the Whitney Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janiero, Brazil; P.S. 1, New York; Tokyo Wonder Site, Tokyo, Japan; and the Museo d’Arte Contemporania Roma, Rome, Italy. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn and Rio de Janiero.
The Rena Bransten Gallery is pleased to present a selection of photographs by Vik Muniz from his latest series, Pictures of Magazines 2.
In the original Pictures of Magazines Series, Muniz constructed portraits and still-lifes out of bits of colored paper hole-punched from magazines and arranged like paint dabs to form the images. In his new series, Muniz uses magazine images torn out in ragged patches to construct his content – people, still-lifes, objects, or architecture – in re-renderings of paintings from art history. By building up recognizable images from smaller but equally identifiable patches, the focus of one’s eyes shifts back and forth between the final forms and the clearly articulated parts that make them up. This continual focal shift from “big picture” to “little picture” energizes the forms so the contents appear to vibrate or glitter. That one’s eyes cannot resist the push-pull of optical forces plays into Vik’s long-standing interest in how the brain processes visual information. Once again, his genius in leading viewers to see things in a new way is perfectly represented in these new photographs.
Vik Muniz was born in 1961 in Sao Paolo, Brazil. His work has been exhibited internationally in institutions such as the Whitney Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janiero, Brazil; P.S. 1, New York; Tokyo Wonder Site, Tokyo, Japan; and the Museo d’Arte Contemporania Roma, Rome, Italy. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn and Rio de Janiero.