Within the first five minutes of Worst Possible Illusion: The Curiosity Cabinet of Vik Muniz, Vik Muniz and his comedic personality come onto the scene. Worst Possible Illusion is a biography as well as a brief look at the variety of unorthodox techniques Muniz has used while not delving into specific detail about individual pictures. Muniz’s artistic process reflects his history and his personality. In the biographical part of the film, Muniz states that he was born in Brazil during a time of political repression and comments that “everything you say is not what you mean and everything you hear is not what is” so he values not what people say, but rather how people say it. He claims this repressive environment inspired how he treats art by
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Muniz states that he started his career as an artist by sculpting objects with identity crises such as a South American clown skull with a comically large nose, and a Pre-Columbian coffee maker, for example, but once he took pictures of them, he did not care what happened to the sculptures. This attitude about art demonstrates his emphasis on the process of creating while his subject matter (the product of his artistic madness) demonstrates his comedic personality and desire to experiment. Muniz experimented with concepts in order to challenge viewers to consider their perspective and bring attention to what is and isn’t considered conventional. An example of this is is his drawing of a bone in a desert. Conventional artists would perhaps draw a bone in proportion to the desert so the bone would be relatively small compared to the mass of the desert. Muniz’s bone, on the other hand, would not be considered conventional. Muniz planned out the contour (outline) of a bone and then had a man dig the contour into the desert on a much larger scale-- or rather, much larger than an actual bone-- to challenge the viewer’s perception. According to Muniz, while viewers may expect to see a bone in a desert, they do not expect to see a larger-than-life drawing of a bone in a desert. Muniz’s eagerness to experiment and his affinity for humor led to the development …show more content…
His personality shines through in his choice of media-- instead of using graphite to draw, for instance, he twists wire into recognizable forms to reflect his creative, curious nature. This decision to take unorthodox materials and manipulate those materials in such a way that the viewer can only comprehend either the material itself (the wire) or the subject he created with the material (the flowers) is also reflection on his past. As a child, Muniz was fascinated with magicians; as he aged, he understood that magicians show how much the viewer wants to believe. When someone looks at Muniz’s work, they either “see the flower… or see the substance in the which the flower is made: wire itself,” similar to how a viewer can watch a magician’s trick and believe that it is magic or they can dissect the trick until it loses its ability to enchant. The two cannot be perceived at the same time-- the image is either wire or a flower, the trick is either magic or sleight of hand.
Muniz states that he started his career as an artist by sculpting objects with identity crises such as a South American clown skull with a comically large nose, and a Pre-Columbian coffee maker, for example, but once he took pictures of them, he did not care what happened to the sculptures. This attitude about art demonstrates his emphasis on the process of creating while his subject matter (the product of his artistic madness) demonstrates his comedic personality and desire to experiment. Muniz experimented with concepts in order to challenge viewers to consider their perspective and bring attention to what is and isn’t considered conventional. An example of this is is his drawing of a bone in a desert. Conventional artists would perhaps draw a bone in proportion to the desert so the bone would be relatively small compared to the mass of the desert. Muniz’s bone, on the other hand, would not be considered conventional. Muniz planned out the contour (outline) of a bone and then had a man dig the contour into the desert on a much larger scale-- or rather, much larger than an actual bone-- to challenge the viewer’s perception. According to Muniz, while viewers may expect to see a bone in a desert, they do not expect to see a larger-than-life drawing of a bone in a desert. Muniz’s eagerness to experiment and his affinity for humor led to the development …show more content…
His personality shines through in his choice of media-- instead of using graphite to draw, for instance, he twists wire into recognizable forms to reflect his creative, curious nature. This decision to take unorthodox materials and manipulate those materials in such a way that the viewer can only comprehend either the material itself (the wire) or the subject he created with the material (the flowers) is also reflection on his past. As a child, Muniz was fascinated with magicians; as he aged, he understood that magicians show how much the viewer wants to believe. When someone looks at Muniz’s work, they either “see the flower… or see the substance in the which the flower is made: wire itself,” similar to how a viewer can watch a magician’s trick and believe that it is magic or they can dissect the trick until it loses its ability to enchant. The two cannot be perceived at the same time-- the image is either wire or a flower, the trick is either magic or sleight of hand.