Vik Muniz São Paulo, Brazil, born 1961

Vik Muniz’s practice is guided by an interest in reframing and renaming materiality. Utilizing a wide variety of sourced elements to meticulously reconstruct canonical images and iconography, Muniz seeks to provoke for each viewer a reflexive experience of “when” and “how” an image takes form.

Muniz's work has been exhibited in prestigious institutions worldwide with recent solo exhibitions at the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands (all 2016). His work is included in the collections of major international museums such as: the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, CA; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, among many others.

Muniz is involved in social projects that use art-making as a force for change. In 2010 his work with a group of catadores—pickers of recyclable materials—was the subject of the Academy Award nominated documentary film Waste Land. In recognition of his contributions to education and social development including his work with the catadores, he was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 2011. More recently, he opened Escola Vidigal, offering preschool and afterschool programs in art, design and technology to children 4 to 8 years old at the favela Vidigal in Rio de Janeiro.

Muniz currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, and Rio de Janeiro.