Invited to participate in Andre Breton’s exhibit titled First Papers of Surrealism in 1942, Marcel Duchamp waited till others installed their work and then draped it with his. His Mile of String reduced all other art to background.
Art is full of bitchy moments, but rarely do they become historical. Hats off to the man whose disdain made him a beloved and influential figure to this day.
He’s the art world’s Bartley the Scrivener. Just like Bartley, who’d prefer not to, Duchamp indicted the system in which he refused to participate. His reason was solid, and it was about reason: If art were no more than the metronomic production of visual niceties, it was nothing at all.
More than 60 years later, Vik Muniz followed Duchamp’s lead with an unintended, boomerang effect. In obscuring the work of others, Muniz is the one whose product is a thoughtless pleasantry, a parlor trick.
Three examples from his Pictures of Pigment series were recently at the James Harris Gallery. He piled up layers of colored pigment and photographed the results for a final product, attaching his dead weight to the memory of other artists.
Thanks to him, Gustave Courbet, Frederic E. Church and Grandma
Moses all come out the same. What’s really the same is him, not them.
(Click to enlarge)
1. The Oak at Flagey, after Gustave Courbet, 2007
2. Evening in the Woods, after Grandma Moses, 2006
3. The Icebergs, after Frederic E. Church, 2007
one of the worst artists. Thomas Kinkade territory.
Personally, I think Vik Muniz is an amazing artist, who has done some breathtaking stuff.
And I didnt like these at all.
As an artist, I often find that both good and bad things happen when you let the work lead you where it will.
There are some artists who plan every detail in advance, who write scripts, draw blueprints, and never deviate from the route laid out in advance.
Then there are the happy accident artists. And I see this series by Muniz as one of those- except maybe not so happy. Its easy to see how he got to these, from his previous series of works where he laid out other mediums, in other shapes, and photographed them.
It worked with the street urchins, with the chocolate Freuds, with the incredibly beautiful shots of architectural dust, with the torn up magazines, garbage from the street, and many more.
Conceptually, these are right in the progression. But they just dont click the way a lot of his other stuff did.
Part of it may be just the sheer volume of work he has been doing. You get popular, everybody wants a piece of you, and Muniz is VERY popular- with large museum shows of new work happening simultaneously all over the world for years.
Me, I am not giving up on him quite yet.
Ries. Ditto everything you said. I should have added that his work is wide, and this series is narrow. Regina
giving money to the poor could only corrupt them further, whereas the rich would not be harmed by it
Dear Regina,
Your “review” of this exhibition, besides being a deplorably written, sophomoric, inconclusive, twitter-shaped, stuttering piece of nothing, does not even bother to inform your readership that the show was organized without my knowledge.
I don’t know what is worst; a solo exhibition that I had nothing to do with it, or an ignorant and lazy review of it.
You are right in one thing! My medium is a mess as it embraces with realism the complexities of the visual environment we live in. It is a conscious approach and not a spontaneous manifestation of my ignorance and confusion.
I am only answering your post because I seriously care for my public in my belief that art can be accessible without being simplified by elitists or translated by unqualified people such as yourself.
My advice, don’t quit your day job if your lucky to have one.