In the Studio: Vik Muniz
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2024
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Vik Muniz says he owes his artistic career to being shot as a young man, not because he had an epiphany about the meaning of his life, but because he won enough compensation from the accident to move to New York and kick-start his career in the art world. He is now probably one of Brazil’s most successful visual artists and his pieces can range from tiny specs that are photographed by microscopes to giant landscapes captured from helicopters. He is known for working with unconventional materials; some of his most famous works have been created out of sugar, chocolate and a plate of left over spaghetti. Andrea Kennedy went to New York to meet him as he prepared for an exhibition full of illusions.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Una Chaplin, and I'm the host of a new podcast called Hollywood Exiles. |
| 0:06.0 | It tells the story of how my grandfather, Charlie Chaplin, and many others, were caught up in a campaign to root out communism in Hollywood. |
| 0:15.0 | Hollywood Exiles from CBC Podcasts and the BBC World Service. |
| 0:20.0 | Find it wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:24.0 | Hello and welcome to the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service with me Andrea Kennedy |
| 0:31.0 | and this week we revisit the Brazilian artist |
| 0:34.2 | Vic Moniz who says he became an artist after a pretty dramatic event. |
| 0:39.6 | A woman stopped my car and he said you have to help me this guy is killing my |
| 0:43.3 | fiancee one guy had breast knuckles he was hitting the other guy against the car I |
| 0:47.5 | pushed him away he ran and as I proceeded to my, the victim picked up a gun somewhere and decided to shoot the first person that he saw. |
| 0:57.0 | And it was me. |
| 0:59.0 | He'd been shot in the leg and lost a lot of blood, but his transition to artist after this was not |
| 1:04.6 | because he had a sudden epiphany a sudden realization that he must dedicate himself |
| 1:09.6 | to his art. I woke up two days later with the guy who shot me asking for forgiveness and |
| 1:16.4 | ask me not to press charges. I said okay so he gave me an amount of money that I used to buy the ticket to come to the United States. |
| 1:25.6 | And it was in the US that his career as an artist took off. |
| 1:29.6 | If I wasn't shot, you know, I probably wouldn't be talking to you here today. |
| 1:33.0 | He's now one of the best selling artists from Brazil. |
| 1:37.0 | To give you an idea, one of his pieces, |
| 1:39.0 | a red Marilyn Monroe was sold at auction for more than $150,000. |
| 1:45.0 | His work has been on display at some of the world's most famous galleries, |
| 1:49.0 | the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Sao Paulo Paul and London's Tate Modern are just some of them. |
... |
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