On April 5, 2001, Artist and Youth: A Dialogue hosted one
of the most colorful and expressive artists, Vik Muniz. The dialogue
was held in the midst of Muniz's work on display in the Whitney
Museum's fifth floor mezzanine, entitled The Things Themselves:
Pictures of Dust. And that was exactly what the work was - pictures
of dust! Using his delightful imagination, Muniz took dust from
the museum's galleries and then using photographs of minimalist
sculptors in the collection, reproduced the image on paper with
the dust. He then photographed his piece and blew it up to large
sizes. The result was giant paper clips, feathers and long strands
of hair from museum visitors that ultimately composed Muniz's pieces.
The works were very real to life and it is not the first time this
artist has worked with such an odd medium; his list goes on to include
sugar, cotton, string, and chocolate.
Above: Youth Insights studio visit with Vik Muniz.
Here is an expert from our dialogue with Vik Muniz:
Question: Do you think your copies of the minimalist sculptors
are a form of sarcasm?
Answer: I think other artists deserve respect and would never copy
a work or art which I do not respect or like. The fact that I do
make a copy is for my representation of what it means to me and
what it means now to the audience. It is like Leonardo's Last Supper
and Andy Warhol's representation of it.
Other Insights by the artist:
- Muniz says that a picture is not what is on a wall or what is
in your brain, rather it is what is in between the two.
- He comments, "As much as you try to copy art you will add to
it, it will always be different then the original no matter what
angle you look at it."
- When his work was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he started
talking to a group of teenagers who were admiring his work but
did not know he was the artist. He approached them as though he
had no idea about his work and asked them how they thought Muniz
created it. They responded by giving all these different, and
rather inaccurate, answers about the process. When he revealed
the actual procedure he used, the teenagers simply dismissed his
idea as wrong. Muniz says he enjoys getting the audience's different
explanations on how they think he made his work.
Above: Vik Muniz with Youth Insights 2000-2001
©
2001 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
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