Vik Muniz: Foolishness and flamboyance

This is why art isn't philosophy.

Vik Muniz, the artist famous for recreating iconic artworks in different media and then photographing it (think the Mona Lisa in peanut butter and jelly) has moved on to a kind of sculptural painting that recreates the backs of great works of art. The photo below should help demonstrate how lame and uninspired this idea is.

That's right: this is not the actual back of a work of art, but a separate work of art that recreates the back of painting in exquisite detail (in the top case, Van Gogh's "The Starry Night," in the second, Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks").

Muniz says he's drawn to the tradition of trompe-l'oeil painting, photo realistic work that aims to fool the eye.

These are pictures of paintings as commodities and I somehow find something eternally contemporary about them. Drawing attention away from their primary function, as well as from their actual support, these paintings always appear as a responsive redefinition of the medium through the exercise of its own limitations. By continuously updating Parrhasius' picture-object paradigm the artist is able to embrace the cause of realism with all its foolishness and flamboyance.

It's stupid. Which would you rather see: the Van Gogh or the Muniz? It's like Muniz has given up on inspiration or trying to find a spiritual connection to reality. He's settled for the bureaucracy of mark-making. Slavishly replicating footnotes to actual art, he sees the stage that supports Picasso and instead of jumping into the spotlight he shuffles to the shadows.

Not surprisingly, he received a lot of cooperation from the museums that own these great works of art. What curator wouldn't want to be involved in celebrating their important work? I cringe to think of this work's future, however, as curators will inevitably buy or show narcissism disguised as an artistic investigation into realism.

At least his earlier work had the pleasures of their peculiar medium (I loved his chocolate syrup Pollock). This show just seems tired and spirit-less.

Vik Muniz at Sikkema Jenkins, through Oct. 11.