Double Elvis

Vik MunizWW-1999-121093

1999·Silver dye-bleach prints·Each: 97.8 × 78.2 cm (38 9/16 × 30 13/16 in.)

Vik Muniz has become known for employing unusual materials to create what he calls "the worst possible illusion that will still fool the eye." In his series Pictures of Chocolate, Muniz used Bosco syrup to recreate iconic images from fine art. Muniz had to work quickly to finish and photograph his drawings before the syrup dried and lost its glossy look. In fact, Muniz turned to color photography for the first time in this project because of Bosco's resemblance in black and white to blood (for which it was used in early horror films, including Psycho). This image of Andy Warhol's 1963 Double Elvis—itself already an appropriation of a famous Hollywood photograph—thus takes on another layer of representation in its turn from portrait to memento mori.

Catalogue

Year: 1999
Medium: Silver dye-bleach prints
Dimensions: Each: 97.8 × 78.2 cm (38 9/16 × 30 13/16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Vik Muniz

Artist

Vik Muniz

Photography

Best known for his witty, unexpected recreations of canonical art historical and pop culture imagery, Vik Muniz creates intricately layered photographic works that explore the nature of visual cognition and the transcendent area between perception and reality. From a peanut butter and jelly Double Mona Lisa (indebted, of course, to Andy Warhol’s treatment of da Vinci’s original masterwork) to a Bosco chocolate syrup rendering of one of Hans Namuth’s photographs of Jackson Pollack, Muniz uses unconventional materials to heighten effect. His signature process – using mixed media and found materials to create large-scale renderings that are discarded after being photographed – again alludes to the constructed nature of memory and perception.

Brooklyn, NY, USA; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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