New York MOMA (2) - Artist Choice + Vik Muniz = REBUS

There are several ways to experience an exhibition. Besides concentrating on individual artwork, however, the linkage in between each artwork is also important, someone would calls it the juxtaposition(s) of the artworks. What does it means by juxtaposition? If putting it into the exhibition aspect, it ‘s the dialogue between two seemingly unrelated artworks. Under the spotlight, a single artwork is playing its own monologue, but in an exhibition that contains different artworks, the superficial characteristic of each individual artwork is therefore a signification of the process to the next one. Like orchestra, every instruments plays its own part, they are the atoms of the entire piece. This idea, thereby, marks a substantial concept of the contemporary group exhibition. It is not necessary to harmonize each and another; it can be discordancy, in some way.

To decide which artwork goes first and which comes next is a complicated question, and there is no absolute answer. In this respect, the curator therefore plays an important role. The curator is now the arranger, the melody is the concept and the artworks are the instruments. In this exhibition, Vik Muniz is the curator; MOMA had already organized several exhibitions, which invite the artist to select artworks from the MOMA. In doing so, creating new ideas and offering new perspective to its audiences.

In his work, Vik Muniz inventively questions the function and traditions of visual representation; he takes this chance to render different unlikely subjects to response to his photographs. The arrangement of these different artworks therefore served as a metaphor – Rebus.

H +

= Hear, or Here; Artist Choice + Vik Muniz = REBUS(?)

It is not a matter if one can successfully hit Vik Muniz ‘s purpose or not, it ‘s more significant to let the question rebounds back to everybody’s mind: There is an essential differences in between what you see and what you are experiencing. What you see is the artworks, but what one cannot see are the punctuations in between them. It makes no sense if one miss out the punctuations. And I would say the artworks + punctuations = experience. As Vik Muniz states that he actually intended to use a narrative sequence to create surprising juxtapositions and new meanings.

If talking about audiences, I am definitely not a good one. I walk through the exhibition following his narrative sequences, and then I made my way upstream. With all other audiences and the artworks head-on towards me, isn’t it a surprising experience too?

(These pictures are in Vik Muniz 's narrative's order, not my upstream way.)






As part of the Artist's Choice at MoMA series, Vik Muniz talks to editor-at-large Howard Halle about his choice of works from MoMA's permanent collection for his show "Rebus".