Rena Bransten Gallery: Vik Muniz - Bulfinch's Recycling Yard, Vik Muniz Pictures of Junk.

Comment: Vik Muniz arranges junkyard scrap into rusty renditions of Old Master paintings of Greek and Roman gods by artists like Titian and Velasquez. Well, he doesn't actually arrange it himself; he's on a scaffold maybe 75 feet off the ground directing assistants to arrange it for him-- major junk-- everything from nuts and bolts to old washing machines, computer monitors, fifty-five gallon drums, truck tires, machinery, and even a piano. (An entertaining time-lapse video of one composition's arrangement process plays on endless loop in the back left room.)

When the debris designating is done, Muniz photographs his junksterpieces, super sizes 'em up in editions of ten prints each (priced $28K), and that's the show. The premise works, using the inevitable impermanence of material culture to comment on the cyclic nature of great civilizations. Between you and me, I think this category of debris is too unwieldy to arrange accurately; the results are uneven, some images requiring more effort to resolve than I care to expend on expensive art. Engaging yes; consummate no. But you gotta hand it to Muniz for tackling AND completing these dauntingly difficult deadweight donkeywork dealie-bob consolidations.