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Vik Muniz
Reversal Grey Marilyn (Pictures of Diamond Dust)

2003

$118,500
£90,161.16
€103,884.02
CA$168,232.91
A$180,483.81
CHF 96,807.80
MX$2,173,000.86
NOK 1,220,376.04
SEK 1,112,813.83
DKK 776,152.20

About the Item

Reversal Grey Marilyn was created by Vik Muniz for his 'Pictures of Diamond Dust' series in 2003. The art is 55 x 49 inches and the framed size is 57.75 x 51.25 inches. There is a label on the verso with the artist's signature and another label noting the edition number 4/5. From the total edition of 8 of which there were 5 Arabics and 3 APs. Framed in the original artist's frame. Literature: Pedro Corrêa do Lago, Vik Muniz: Obra Completa 1987-2009, Rio de Janeiro, 2009, pg.309. Vik Muniz’s Pictures of Diamond Dust and the Allure of Reversal Grey Marilyn (2003) Vik Muniz’s Pictures of Diamond Dust series is a concentrated and incisive meditation on one of the most reproduced faces in modern visual culture: Marilyn Monroe. Created in 2003, the series comprises only four works, each derived from the same iconic Marilyn image made famous by Andy Warhol. Muniz renders the image in the studio using diamond dust, photographs that ephemeral drawing, and presents the resulting photograph as the finished artwork. This process, building an image out of glittering dust only to fix it permanently in a photograph, lies at the heart of the series. In the studio, the diamond dust briefly catches and scatters light, behaving with a shifting brilliance that echoes the seductions and distortions of fame itself. But once photographed, those ephemerally dazzling qualities become transformed: the artwork no longer sparkles or changes with the viewer’s movement. Instead, the photograph offers a fixed, stable record of the material and the moment it occupied. Muniz thus uses the idea of shimmer to interrogate the mechanics of glamour and its transformation into cultural myth. The picture becomes a meditation on how fleeting charisma becomes a permanent icon, how a person becomes an image. Among the four works in the series, Reversal Grey Marilyn occupies a particularly intriguing place. While all four pieces share the same underlying Warhol reference, each differs in tone and background: one features a stark black field, two have a more atmospheric grey background, and Reversal Grey presents Marilyn’s face in cool, grey tones on white. As a “reversal,” the image functions like a photographic negative: light areas become dark, and dark areas become unexpectedly luminous. The reversal effect makes Marilyn instantly recognizable yet subtly uncanny, as though we are looking at the memory of an image rather than the image itself. The grayscale palette heightens this impression of distance and myth, transforming the original Pop exuberance into something more introspective and spectral. Because the final artwork is a photograph, the surface does not retain the shifting sparkle of diamond dust. Instead, the dust becomes a delicate texture within the photographic register, a frozen imprint of what was once a glittering physical surface. Marilyn emerges from this texture not as a literal sparkly object but as a symbol suspended between materiality and myth. Reversal Grey Marilyn distills Vik Muniz’s fascination with the image of Marilyn Monroe, the alchemy of celebrity, and the fragile boundary between spectacle and permanence. By translating a glittering diamond-dust drawing into a perfectly still photograph, Muniz allows viewers to contemplate the power, and the illusion, of an image that has shaped decades of visual culture. This work is both a tribute and a transformation, offering collectors a rare and resonant piece of one of Muniz’s most incisive series.
  • Creator:
    Vik Muniz (1961, Brazilian)
  • Creation Year:
    2003
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 55 in (139.7 cm)Width: 49 in (124.46 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Greenwich, CT
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: PTMUN2003051stDibs: LU2664217212222

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