"After starting off with sugar and chocolate, I could not help trying everything else I found in the kitchen . . . It’s only natural to be tempted by things that were close at hand . . . that translated that sense of paint – spaghetti sauce, and peanut butter, for example."
—Vik Muniz, Reflex, A Vik Muniz PrimerAs the self-proclaimed master of creating the ‘worst possible illusion,’ Vik Muniz has used everything from chocolate, diamonds, magazines, and puzzle pieces as media (for examples in this auction: lots 64, 208, 240, 241, 255, 287). In the present lot, the humble medium of spaghetti and sauce is transformed into the masterpiece of Medusa. Measuring 14 x 14 inches in overall diameter, the print mirrors the size of a dinner plate charger, wittily completing the alchemical conversion of Marinara into Medusa, or perhaps Medusa into Marinara.
The source image for this work is Caravaggio’s Medusa, 1597, which is in the permanent collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
