The rephotographed reproductions are hardly accurate renditions of the original artwork. Detail is lost in the process thus creating a quality similar to a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox. The inherent imperfections are magnified, emphasizing the dings, smudges and unblended shifts in color. Magritte's Le chant des sirenes looks as if it was rendered in crayon ae a rubbing over pavement to create the texture of the background sky. There is a subtle clash in surfaces ae the smooth, nonreflective photographic paper contrasts with the textured quality, which is heightened in the reproductive process. The photo­graphs also incorporate the original and sometimes overly elaborate frames, creating a false illusion of depth on a two-dimen­sional plane.

Muniz's inclu­sion of the gallery model leaves no conceptual stone unturned. The original maque­ttes are arranged inside, replicating the precise posi­tion of the repro­ductions on the walls. As Muniz states, "The mod­el gives every­thing and nothing to the viewer...."³ We are able to view a portion of the

model, which is usually unavailable to the general public, along with the origi­nal maquettes. Continuing Muniz's con­sistent use of illusion, a hand crafted, mini-model is placed inside, creating an infinite circle of reproductions within reproductions, models within models. Absurdity and humor are essential com­ponents in Muniz's work, as witnessed by his earlier painted silhouettes of bovines on white cows and two por­traits of the Mona Lisa, one in peanut butter and the other in jelly. These two elements, along with the artist's laborious process, are absent in the far more serious Model Pictures. He relies on found objects, merely docu­menting someone else's reproduction of art rather than creating the work himself. He depends on a fascinating, existing object to carry the installation, but ultimately, it is not taken far enough. It is tempting to attribute this lack of ingenuity to the sheer limitations of creating a series solely inspired from the collection of an institution. Muniz, however, is not a stranger to museum commissions. He recently executed two projects that indicate that patronage is not an impediment for the artist. The Frick Art and Historical Center in Pitts­burgh commissioned Muniz to create a body of work in response to the restoration of the 19TH century estate of Henry Clay Frick. The resulting series, Clayton Days, reconstructs the time period with elaborately staged still life and genre scenes combined with original photographs from the era. Muniz used 19TH century equipment, costumes and props - shallow depth of field and low perspective expose Muniz's photographs as those taken in the 2isx century. Clay­ton Days is a successful combination of the reproduction and original, an illu­sion taken one step further through the simple act of staging a situation, rather than documenting an existing one.

For The Things Themselves: Pictures of Dust, Muniz collected feathers, hair, cobwebs, paint chips, pencil shavings, soot, sand and gravel from the floors of the Whitney Museum and created draw­ings based on their collection of Mini­malist and Post-Minimalist art. The large photographs of Carl Andre, Richard Ser-ra and Barry Le Va pieces implement the same process used to create Pictures of Chocolate or Pictures of Dirt. The mono­lithic sculptures, however, were trans­formed, no longer constructed of impenetrable material but lightweight detritus that were destroyed after they were photographed.

Vik Muniz is at his best when he is in absolute control of his subject matter, with his fingernails encrusted in dirt, his hands covered in chocolate and his stu­dio buried in thousands of yards of thread. In Failure in 20TH Century Paint­ing, James Elkins describes five strategies for taking trompe I'oeA into the 21st cen­tury. The fifth approach is particularly relevant for Model Pictures "... try to make the genre into a Postmodern play on illusion rather than an example of illusion."⁴ All of Muniz's previous works "played on" the element of illusion, caus­ing the viewer to think twice about the concept and the process. Unfortunately, Model Pictures falls short; the model itself and the original reproductions are ultimately more engaging than the end product.

1.   Vik Muniz, Seeing is Believing, Arena Editions, 1998. Dialogue with Charles Ashley Stainback.

2.Vik Muniz, Model Pictures, The Menil Collection, 2002.

3. Ibid.

4.James Elkins, Failure in 20th Century Painting, (unpublished manuscript), 2001.

JACINDA RUSSELL IS AN ARTIST LIVING AND WORKING IN PORTLAND, OREGON.