A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Pictures
Vik Muniz turns old family photographs into… new family photographs. For his latest exhibition, Album, Muniz rearranges hundreds of found photos, reclaiming discarded memories and reminding us of the universal stories they carry.
His style is more mosaic than collage. Muniz trims and layers individual photos, considering both their subjects and their hues.
His large-scale Wedding contains dozens of pictures of babies, brides, mothers, daughters, flowers, signatures, homes, and hearts — the whole cycle of life compressed into one shot of the happy moment. The groom’s coat is a patchwork of candids (lost relatives? friends?); the bride’s dress is made of handwritten notes,children’s faces, other brides.
Originally a sculptor, Muniz has been incorporating everyday objects in his work since the late 1980s. Album is on display at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York through May 10.