This essay focuses on Brazilian–American artist Vik Muniz's 2008 Pictures of Garbage and the pendant 2010 documentary on their making, Waste Land, directed by Lucy Walker. Muniz enlists a group of Brazilian garbage pickers as subjects and participants in the construction of their own portraits, using garbage picked from a landfill outside of Rio de Janeiro. The use of garbage as a material draws attention to global patterns of exploitation that produce both the waste itself and the poverty of the garbage pickers. However, this essay argues that Muniz's social aims are undermined by formal incoherences within the portraits and their subsequent recommodification on the global art market. Using Michael Fried's theories, the essay identifies a tension in Pictures of Garbage between the theatricality of the subjects' poses, drawn from canonical European paintings, and the absorptive qualities of the garbage itself. This dissonance reflects Muniz's own split position as a cosmopolitan global artist compelled to represent Brazilian identity through associations with base materiality.

中文翻译：

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维克·穆尼兹（Vik Muniz）的垃圾图片与贫穷美学

本文重点介绍巴西裔美国艺术家维克·穆尼兹（Vik Muniz）的2008年《垃圾图片》，以及由露西·沃克（Lucy Walker）执导的2010年制作的吊坠纪录片《荒原》。穆尼兹（Muniz）使用从里约热内卢郊外的一个垃圾填埋场中捡来的垃圾，邀请一群巴西垃圾捡拾者作为自己画像的创作者和参与者。垃圾作为原料的使用引起人们对全球性开采方式的关注，这种方式既产生了废物本身，又导致了拾荒者的贫困。但是，本文认为，肖像中的形式不协调以及随后在全球艺术品市场上的重新商品化削弱了穆尼兹的社会目标。运用迈克尔·弗里德（Michael Fried）的理论，本文确定了《垃圾图片》中对象姿势的戏剧性之间的张力，取材于欧洲经典画作，以及垃圾本身的吸收特性。这种不和谐反映了穆尼兹自己作为国际大都会艺术家的分裂立场，他被迫通过与基本重要性的联系来代表巴西的身份。