BRUSSELS.- Baronian Xippas presents a series of new works by the famous Brazilian artist, Vik Muniz.

Vik Muniz’s artist practice spans three decades and the complexity of his photographic works grabs the attention of visitors. The use of unusual materials - chocolate, jam, sugar, pigments, dust, rubbish - to reconstruct works of art from art history and to reproduce emblematic scenes from popular culture has propelled him onto the international art scene.

In this new series, titled Surfaces, Vik Muniz is once again reflecting upon the dichotomy between the object and its representation and exploring the nature of perception through art materials.

He revisits the works of abstract painters like Josef Albers, Hans Arp or Milton Avery and re-appropriates their visual worlds through a hybrid process that combines collage, painting and high-resolution digital photography. The artist cuts out and superimposes card stock and photographs them to then move them around, rearrange them and photograph them again. Each photographic trompe-l’œil is unique. The exhibited works evoke the rendition - colour, texture and material - that is characteristic of paintings.

Surfaces questions the mechanisms of representation and the hierarchy between “originals” and “copies”, between the work and its subject, at a time when the relationship between art and the image is mediated by the pervasiveness of digital technology.

To quote the artist, “the difference between the work and its image barely exists anymore” and in this new series, he supplies us with a reflection on the possible interpretations of material reality.

For the duration of the exhibition, the space at 33 rue de la Concorde will welcome The Skateroom x Vik Muniz. There you will be able to discover the limited series of skateboards designed by Vik Muniz.

Vik Muniz was born in 1961 in São Paulo. He lives and works between Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and New York, United States. He has held numerous solo exhibitions, in particular at the Collection Lambert in Avignon, France (2019), Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, United States (2019), El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas, United States (2019), Foam Museum, Amsterdam, Holland (2018), Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, United States (2018), Belvedere Museum, Vienna, Austria (2018), Palazzo Cini, Venice, Italy, (2017), MARCO Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Mexico (2017), High Museum, Atlanta, United States (2016), Mauritshuis, The Hague, Holland, (2016), MUNTREF Contemporary Art Center, Buenos Aires, Argentine (2015), Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel (2014), Les Rencontres d’Arles, France (2014), CAC Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain (2012), MoMA PS1, New York, United States (2007), Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, Great Britain (2007), Miami Art Museum, United States (2006), Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil (2004), Fundación Telefónica, Madrid, Spain (2004), Menil Collection, Houston, United States (2002), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, United States (2001), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1998) and International Center for Photography, New York (1998).

His works are part of both public and private prestigious collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Guggenheim Museum (New York), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Tate Gallery (London), Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokyo), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris) and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid) among others.

In 2001, Vik Muniz represented Brazil in the 49th Venice Biennale. Vik Muniz’s work is the subject of the film Waste Land (2010), which received an award at the Sundance Festival 2010 and was nominated for Best Documentary at the Oscars in 2011. In 2011, Vik Muniz was appointed a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. In 2015, he founded Morro do Vidigal, a school of visual arts for children from the Vidigal favela in Rio de Janeiro. In 2019, Vik Muniz signed a collaboration with Ruinart during his artistic residency at the Maison Ruinart in Reims (France).