Meet Vik Muniz

Brazilian artist Vik Muniz's photographs are ornate puzzles. They are intricately conceived and meticulously realized tricks of the eye. He'll take unexpected materials like dirt, sugar, chocolate syrup, and other odd detritus and brilliantly sculpt and arrange them into photo-realistic images. His work produces a dizzying effect. When you first look at his photographs, you see a pell-mell group of objects. But once you take a step back, an image reveals itself.

Born in São Paulo in 1961, Vik moved to the U.S. in 1983. He began exhibiting internationally in 1989 and has since had solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, The Museu de Arte Moderna in São Paulo, and the Museo d'Art Contemoranea in Rome, among others. Vik lives and works in Brooklyn and Rio de Janeiro, and he is still inspired by his native Brazil. In the international art world, he's a stalwart. But in Brazil, he is beloved.

In recent years, Vik has brought innovation to a variety of projects. The Oscar-nominated documentary Waste Land followed Vik as he traveled back to the largest landfill in the world, Rio's Jardim Gramacho ("Gramacho Gardens"). There, he took portraits of the landfill's garbage pickers—workers who pluck recyclable materials from the heaps of garbage delivered daily. These portraits became the source material for a collaborative project between him and the subjects of the photos.

Together, they assembled large-scale models of their portraits using garbage, with truly magnificent results. Phillips de Pury, a London auction house, offered to auction one of the editions of the portrait, with the proceedings going to the association of garbage pickers featured in the documentary. The co-operative used the money to help build a health center and library in the area where most of the pickers live. The project changed the lives of the pickers Vik worked with; it also changed his.

It's this energy of collaboration that makes him a perfect fit for The Ultrabook™ Experience. We sat down with him to discuss his passion for image-making, how technology has given rise to more social mobility, and the importance of partnership in his creative process.

In 2010 you were named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. Why did you choose to direct part of your career towards helping others?

Vik Muniz: I left Brazil and moved to the United States in 1983. It wasn't until 1991 that I was invited to exhibit my art in my home country. I left Brazil as a poor kid, and all of a sudden I came back as a somewhat successful artist. And I had a bit of a revelation. I realized that I was selling my work to collectors. My work was actually catering to a very exclusive audience.

This changed when I was invited to work with street children on an art project in Salvador, Brazil. I spent three months working with street children in an arts workshop, and I think that was a defining moment in my life as a Brazilian American person.

Since then I realized that this would be a way to come back to my own culture, my own place. If I always had something going on that was socially engaged. From the mid 90s to today I've always tried to get involved with some social activity.

What does Spectaculu do, and why were you drawn to their work?

Well, Spectaculu is strategically located in the center of Rio. In a way, its first mission is to bring young people from rivaling favelas together. Spectaculu caters to an amazingly broad demographic group of kids, so they come from basically all over the city. In a course like the photo course, there are hardly two that come from the same place.

Through visual arts and technical education, Spectaculu helps students from the ages of 17-21 acquire practical and theoretic skills to get jobs in Rio's media industry.

That's basically what we're trying to do at Spectaculu: encourage social mobility through arts education.

Your images are, to some degree, deceptive. What importance do you assign to metaphor and double entendre?

Well, I was fortunately—and unfortunately—raised during the time of military dictatorship in Brazil. During this time of military dictatorship, you were in a very peculiar sort of environment. It was like a semiotic black market. You cannot say what you want to say. And all the information that you receive, you kind of have to dig into it and find out what it really means. So as a result of that you become very good at metaphors because that's really the only way you can say what you really mean. And you can communicate about politics and the state of things.

Why did you choose this group of friends to come together for this project?

When Intel and Levi's approached me about the "Friends of..." initiative, I wanted to bring together people I admire. I thought maybe I should talk to people who had this idea of crossing cultural, economic, and social divides—people who had an interest in a sort of broader vision of culture. So I asked Carlos Saldanha and the Campanas, Brothers who are also people who are dealing with putting opposite notions together, people who are trying to connect not only media, but also the public, in very creative ways...they're both artists who believe in engaging the world around them in positive ways.

How do you see your role as the central advocate for Spectaculu?

Well I hope to see myself as sort of a facilitator, as an axis. I hope that we do more than just create well designed T-shirts and share practical skills and expertise with the help of Ultrabooks™. I hope to see this in a more wholesome or holistic way. I want our effort to be something that generates energy outside of itself.

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