Vik Muniz
Sigmund

Sigmund

© Vik Muniz / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Sigmund
Sigmund
ArtistBrazilian, born 1961
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Sigmund
  • from the series Pictures of Chocolate
Date1997–98
PlaceUnited States
MediumSilver dye bleach print
Dimensionsimage: 38 1/2 × 30 3/4 inches (96.3 × 76.9 cm)
irregular sheet: 50 × 34 15/16 inches (125 × 87.3 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute in honor of C. Glenn Cambor
Object number99.294
Non exposé

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
DescriptionSigmund is Vik Muniz's first color photograph. It depicts a portrait, made entirely of chocolate, of the renowned Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Muniz has made a number of works using ephemeral materials such as sugar, ink, chocolate, caviar, and even trash, which he uses to paint an image based on a pre-existing photograph by another photographer. Muniz then photographs each of his performative paintings before the materials can set.   Muniz chose Sigmund as his first subject for a chocolate painting because he thought "Freud could explain all these associations [we have] with the medium [chocolate]," such as love, luxury, romance, obesity, and stains.   Ultimately, Muniz is interested in the blurry relationship between various media as the seeming permanence of the source image is transformed by being recreated in another medium, and transformed again as it is re-visualized in photography.
Provenance[Brent Sikkema Fine Art, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 1999.
Exhibition HistoryExhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Lower Brown Corridor, "Contemporary Latin American Photography from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Collection", October 3, 2001 -January 27, 2002.

"Ruptures and Continuities: Photography Made after 1960 from the MFAH Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Brown Foundation Galleries, February 21 - May 9, 2010.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscription: The photograph is inscribed in black, verso, lower right: "Sigmund 1997 / #2/3".
The photograph is signed in black, verso, lower right: "Vik Muniz".

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.

Haystack After Monet #2
Vik Muniz
2001
Silver dye bleach print
2002.317
Faucet
Vik Muniz
1995
Gelatin silver print
95.70
Photograph #11
Vik Muniz
1994
Watercolor, watercolor pencil, and casein on paper
95.54
Photograph #9
Vik Muniz
1994
Watercolor, watercolor pencil, and casein on paper
95.143
Youth (Gaspar)
Vik Muniz
1999, printed 2002
Photogravure
2002.75.28
Vik Muniz
2008
Canvas, wood support, metal brackets and wood frame
2019.123
"Medusa" Plate
Vik Muniz
1999
Porcelain
2000.62
Untitled
c. 1880
Tintype
2004.1421
Heirs Come to Pass 3
Martina López
1991
Silver dye bleach print
2013.718
Freud's Glasses–Viewing a text by Jung I
Yoneda Tomoko
1998
Gelatin silver print
99.309
Amor Omnea I, II, III
Michael Tracy
1993
Silver dye bleach print with applied color and collage
97.214.A-.C