Valentina, The Fastest
For the Sugar Children series, Muniz took pictures of local children while on vacation in the Caribbean. Upon returning home, he worked from the snapshots, creating likenesses by pouring and arranging sugar on black paper. The artist here skillfully undermines the tradition of the "happy locals" vacation photo through pictures laced with a bittersweet irony: the sugar Muniz pours connotes both the elixir of childhood and the hard labor of the local trade.
Artwork Details
- Title: Valentina, The Fastest
- Artist: Vik Muniz (Brazilian, born Sao Paulo, 1961)
- Date: 1996
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: 33.9 x 26.7 cm (13 3/8 x 10 1/2 in. )
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Purchase, Anonymous Gift, 1997
- Object Number: 1997.230.1
- Rights and Reproduction: © Vik Muniz
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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