The Rio Project

2011_9_22 Waste Land

“Variety is the spice of life,” remarked my wife a couple days ago, thinking of the interesting mix of films we have seen recently, all of them coming in the mail from NETFLIX. Last night we watched a most unusual documentary about a rather extraordinary artist from South America, Vik Muniz. He was born in a lower middle class neighborhood in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He financed a trip to New York City in the early eighties with money given him by a rich man who had accidentally shot him in the leg. He shows the scar in the movie. The money turned out to be his ticket to fame and fortune. At age 50 he had an idea to return to Brazil, which could be in part a way to give something back to his homeland. He seemed to be the kind of guy who would do that. There is no question he is an individual of extraordinary warmth in order to coax a great deal out of anyone he comes in contact with, as he demonstrates time and time again in “Waste Land.” Although he was originally a sculptor, he made his name as an innovative photographer, as he makes clear in the film. He made plans to be in Rio de Janeiro the better part of two years working with ‘catadores’ who worked in the Jarden Gamacho.

So what is the Jarden Gamacho? It is a vast landfill full of the garbage of Rio. And catadores or “pickers” are the group of scavengers who ‘farm the filth for fun and profit,’ if you can believe that. Actually, that’s not quite true because the seven catadores Vik selects for his special project are men and women who are interested only in material that can be recycled. Who knows how much time Muniz spent meeting catadores until he found the right seven. Months probably. The Association that was formed for the catadores has 2000 members. One of the people he chose for the project was Tiao, the man responsible for the Association. He presides over any issue that comes up. Another was Zambi, the resident intellectual who gathered enough books in the dump to start a decent library in the building where the Association held their meetings. Four women, each with a different story, were selected. Suelem started when she was 7 years old and now she is 18 with two kids, with a third on the way by the time the project ends. (A city of shacks borders the landfill; its population is 13,000 souls. It’s where most of the “pickers” live.) Irma is an older woman who is the resident cook at Jarden Gamacho. Magna and Isis, two women in their thirties, are pickers that are there because they have been unlucky in love. Finally there is Valter, the happy-go-lucky court jester who keeps everyone laughing, and a vital role among the pickers.

Now what might all this have to do with art and photography? The 7 catadores are to become collaborators with Vik in the creation of images in which garbage will play a creative role. The first step was each strikes a pose in imitation of a famous painting. For example Tiao chose “The Death Of Marat” by Jacques Louie David. Vik photographed him and then that picture is magnified many times over on a cloth format that is huge. A scaffold was put together with a large expensive camera. The pose of Marat is sketch in. Then Taio and Vik begin to fill the space around the figure and his bathtub—fill it with pre-selected recycled garbage, much of it colorful. When the design is finished a photograph is taken from above. For exhibition purposes the picture is reduced to approximately
4 x 5.’ Each of the catadores was thrilled to participate in the artwork, and at the end of the day, Vik presented each with a 16 x 20” replica of the picture each had worked on.

Vik Muniz was a sly fellow, as no one felt coerced into participation and all are quite content afterward. He wanted to have impact with his collaborators and he did. There are not too many artists around (or maybe I am living in a cave) with such human intentions. I am all for the idea of art as the engine of transformative experience. I agree with Franz Kafka: Art should serve as pick ax to break the frozen sea inside us. I also think of Artaud and his Theater of the Absurd and Cruelty. Garbage in a work of art?? Gawd, what will think of next?
What people forget is broken is opened.

The finale of the project took place in New York. Six of the catadores were flown to New York to see the stuff in a museum
Vik took Tiao’s work to an auction in New York and it sold for $50,000, which got divvied up among the catadores.

So what happened to the Seven? Valter, the laughing catadores, died of lung cancer right after Vik left. Taio still runs the Association and is big man in the recycle industry. Zambi was a catadores since he was nine years old so he spends some time with his friends, but he is also still stocking the library with more books—they have 7,000 now-- and he also brought computers and other educational tools for the people and their children. Suelem married the man who impregnated her and so far so good. Isis met a man; quit the Jarden Gamacho, got married and now works as a clerk in a grocery store. Magna also met a man and remarried; she works in a Pharmacy, bought a house with the money from the sale of her painting. She also got involved with making Jewelry.

I’ll say this: I was quite moved by this movie and I shall check Vik’s web site to see what he is up to now.