Year: 2004
Medium: chromogenic print
Dimensions: image size: 241.3 x 180.3 cm (95 x 71 in.) frame size: 250.2 x 190.5 cm (98 1/2 x 75 in.)
Edition: A.P. No. 4 from an edition of 6 + 4 A.P
Acquired from Phillips, 2022
From the series “Pictures of Magazines”, this work is based on the famous Vicent van Gogh’s painting “Vase with Irises Against a Yellow Background” (collection: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam). At that time, Van Gogh was in recuperation at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole hospital in Saint-Rémy Provence after the ear-cutting incident. Despite describing his days there as boring and agonizing, he painted over 100 works including the famous “Starry Night” from the Musée d’Orsay, portraits of the patients in the hospital, bright scenes of the garden in the hospital and nearby landscapes, and the “Irises” series which this work is also linked. In particular, the paintings of cypresses which symbolize death in pictorial symbolism, and the swirls characteristic of Van Gogh’s later years became more prominent after this period. In “Pictures of Magazines”, Muniz recreates famous paintings through collages that make full use of magazine clippings. While Van Gogh was a unique artist who truly and distinctively put into practice the impasto (thick paint) technique in modern and contemporary painting, Muniz’s collages resonate the sense of the three-dimensional form of Van Gogh and his paintings in terms of their materiality. The excessive layering in Muniz’s collage is not merely an iconographic imitation of “Vase with Irises Against a Yellow Background”, but also brilliantly captures the passionate and intense brushstrokes of Van Gogh. “Vase with Irises Against a Yellow Background” was painted during Van Gogh’s last days when he sensed the limitations of life in Saint-Rémy. In the tranquil climate of Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh’s inner anguish that was never understood by others and his taut emotion as he continued to be carried away by his unstoppable passion for creation are revealed in his calm paintings. One might wonder what Muniz perceived from creating this work while tracing van Gogh's irises.
