Title: Marat (Sebastião)
Artist: Vik Muniz
Place of Origin: Brazil
Date: 2008
Materials: recyclable materials from Jardim Gramacho landfill
This recreation of The Death of Marat (Jacques-Louis David, 1793) is composed of recyclable materials gathered by Brazilian catadores, or pickers. They live in extreme poverty and make their living by collecting salvageable materials from the landfills to sell. Muniz accomplishes something similar to Wiley, as the original painting lends the connotations of martyrdom and calls for social change that art from revolutionary France is charged with. Proceeds from the sale of this work, as well as from the documentary made about Muniz’s art with the catadores, go to buying better technology and training opportunities for them. Because this work is a collaborative effort, one of the catadores was even photographed posing as Marat, one could question who the artist is. Is it Muniz, who orchestrated the endeavor and had the idea for the initial concept? Is it the catadores, who laid out the recyclables to match the image and who were the first ones to recognize the value in the materials they used? Or is it David, who painted the image that inspired this project? The fact that a masterpiece of art was recreated with what most people would just call garbage pokes at the definition of fine art. We are left to questions whether the materials make it art, or the idea that an artist puts them to. If that is the case, then artists can transform trash into something much more.
Bronson, Ellie. “The Benevolent Ringmaster: Vik Muniz and his Portraits in Garbage.” Artcritical: The Online Magazine of Art and Ideas. January 8, 2011. http://www.artcritical.com/2011/01/08/muniz-walker/
Conversation 