Artist: Vik Muniz (Brazilian, born 1961)
Title: Bacchus Astride a Barrel, after Rubens, from the series Pictures of Junk
Date: 2006
Medium: Dye coupler print (chromogenic print)
Dimensions: 50 x 40 inches
Credit Line: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, gift of Linda Gotskind, 2023.23.3. Image © 2006 Vik Muniz / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Vik Muniz began his artistic career as a sculptor and then gradually turned to drawing and photography. He attributes his shift to photography to living under the Brazilian military dictatorship. A US-backed conservative dictatorship ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, and during these years they issued several extra-legal decrees and ratified a new constitution that allowed for extensive censorship. Muniz claims that this censorship was the reason he became skeptical of traditional media and came to understand the necessity of metaphors to subvert government surveillance tactics.[1] The immediacy of photography allowed him to overcome censorship through direct engagement with the world, as he has stated: “I never trusted ideas based solely on thinking, and I have never been afraid to test them through the primitive filters of labor and intuition.”[2]

Over time, Muniz has developed a practice in which he photographs images composed with a variety of everyday materials including magazine scraps, garbage, and chocolate. Bacchus Astride a Barrel, after Rubens (2006) is part of a series by Muniz titled Pictures of Junk, in which he reproduces famous artworks about Graeco-Roman mythological themes from the 15th through 19th centuries.[3] Muniz arranged miscellaneous items from a junkyard on the floor of a large warehouse by projecting a reference image on the floor of the studio at a 45-degree angle.  He then directed his team of art students with a laser pointer from the scaffolding above to assemble the objects and recreate the image.[4]

This photograph by Muniz reproduces Bacchus (1638–40), an oil painting by the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640). In the original composition, Rubens presents Bacchus, the ancient Roman god of agriculture, wine, and fertility, as a rotund young man seated on a barrel amidst other figures: a satyr, a nymph, and two winged infants—representations of Eros, the god of love. Lying under the god’s foot, one of his sacred animals, a tiger, eats grapes off a vine. Rubens’s style of painting, marked by robust physicality, intense colors, and dramatic gestures, is often seen as exemplary of the Baroque, a period and style that came to prominence in Italy and subsequently across Europe. Baroque painters sometimes used visual techniques to create illusions of real, three-dimensional objects or scenes on a two-dimensional surface.[5] By using three-dimensional objects to create an illusion of a two-dimensional painting, Muniz offers a further variation of this practice.

Rubens was generally interested in Greek and Roman mythology and often painted themes such as bacchanalia, Roman festivals that celebrated Bacchus.[6] They included revelry, dancing, and crying out, often in a state of temporary madness or frenzy. They were seen as subversive by Roman officials due to their free mixing of class and gender and their liberating nature.

In Muniz’s rendition of Rubens’ Bacchus, he further references the wine god by including several wine barrels and bottles, as well as other alcohol-related paraphernalia like crushed aluminum cans, can tabs, and crates. While revelry is one of the most prominent themes, the complexity of the composition allows for multiple interpretations. For example, an analog clock sits atop a filing cabinet to the left of Bacchus’s arm, drawing the viewer’s attention to the passage of time. The notion of circular time is further reinforced by an abundance of round objects such as tires, wheels, and gears found throughout the photograph. By reproducing a 17th-century painting that references subject matter from Roman mythology, which, in turn, emerged from Greek mythology before that, Muniz presents layers of references that encourage the viewer to contemplate the circularity of time and the enduring influence of Graeco-Roman mythology in Western culture.

As in all works in Muniz’s Pictures of Junk series, there is a consistent commentary on waste and consumption. All the objects used for the composition of Bacchus were gathered from a junkyard in Brazil. Specific brands and logos can be found, including a Shell brand oil barrel on the right, and several Sherman-Williams Kem Tone containers. The Baroque art to which Muniz refers is generally associated with excess, further highlighting the theme of consumption. Additionally, the vastness of the composition and Bacchus’s association with inebriation point to the wild excesses of waste in today’s culture. Muniz attempts to grapple with such delirium through his artmaking, which he has said, for him, “is a quest for sanity.”[7]

Bacchus Astride a Barrel, after Rubens, rewards both a close inspection of the individual components as well as a consideration of the big picture. In fact, Muniz believes art “should be about everything at once.”[8]

– Contributed by Audrey Bannister, 2023-24 Curatorial Intern

Bibliography

BOMB Magazine. “Vik Muniz by Mark Magill.” Accessed February 15, 2024, https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2000/10/01/vik-muniz-interviewed/.

Ollman, Arthur. Vik Muniz. Delmonico Books/Prestel, 2016.

The State Hermitage Museum. “Bacchus.” Accessed March 4, 2024, https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/01.+Paintings/48138/.

Vik Muniz. “Pictures of Junk – Sikkema Jenkins & Co.” Accessed March 5, 2024, https://vikmuniz.net/gallery/junk.

Zamora, Lois Parkinson. “Trompe l’oeil Tricks: Borges’ Baroque Illusionism,” University of Houston, accessed March 14, 2024, https://www.uh.edu/~englmi/BorgesBaroqueIllusionism/.

Notes

[1] Arthur Ollman. Vik Muniz. Delmonico Books/Prestel, 2016, p. 60.

[2] Ibid., p. 57.

[3] Ibid., p. 41.

[4] Vik Muniz. “Pictures of Junk – Sikkema Jenkins & Co,” accessed March 5, 2024, https://vikmuniz.net/gallery/junk.

[5] Lois Parkinson Zamora. “Trompe l’oeil Tricks: Borges’ Baroque Illusionism,” University of Houston, accessed March 14, 2024, https://www.uh.edu/~englmi/BorgesBaroqueIllusionism/.

[6] The State Hermitage Museum. “Bacchus,” accessed March 4, 2024, https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/01.+Paintings/48138/.

[7] Arthur Ollman. Vik Muniz. Delmonico Books/Prestel, 2016, p. 61.

[8] BOMB Magazine. “Vik Muniz by Mark Magill.” Accessed February 15, 2024, https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2000/10/01/vik-muniz-interviewed/.