Pictures of Air, Viewing from Berlin, 1989.

In Vik Muniz's work, the transparent is evident in the vapors and stratifications that allow the crystallization of the reproduced image.

The photographic hardening is a magical and ritual consistency; it can pass through the traditional process, but also is concretized through a recourse to fantastical and unusual materials for photography such as sugar and chocolate, iron wire and dust, pantone, gelatin, which can give clarity to lights and shadows that form the images that document an event or a historical moment. In Muniz's work in Venice, the condensation of the light that substantiates the portraits of artists from Chuck Close or essential maps related to world events such as the birth of Darwin or the explosion of the first atom bomb, is obtained by resorting to the hardened composition of colors taken from the infinite range of pantone, or from the manipulation, through the introduction of air, of a body of gelatin. The result is an unexptected and extraordinary photographic consistency, almost a ritual of technical and contemporary magic.

Excerpt from German Celant's Text for the Venice Biennial catalogue, 2001.

Pictures of Air, Viewing from New York, USA (Wall Street Crash), 1929.

Pictures of Air, Viewing from Paris France, 1989.

sources: speronewestwater.com, vikmuniz.net