Portugal lived under a fascist dictatorship for most of the twentieth century, and during this period the state developed a cultural apparatus that employed collective identity in order to perpetuate the regime. For example, a politically advantageous mythology surrounding historical figures was set in motion, and the Portuguese understanding of them is still colored by emotions generated within the last hundred years. This pathos likewise constitutes the context for a commissioned group of large-scale photographs by New York–based Brazilian artist Vik Muniz, whose signature-style images of iconic figures, places, and objects re-created in chocolate, wire, and dust, among other materials, are themselves a visual atlas of late modernity. This time, he has used soil—sent from Portugal by the Centro de Artes Visuais, the commissioning institution—to make six portraits and four landscapes intended to represent “The Land and the People,” which is also this exhibition’s title. Included here are depictions of, for example, the poet Fernando Pessoa, the fado diva Amália Rodrigues, and the young soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, as well as of symbolic sites such as the Belém Tower and the Terreiro do Paço. As always with Muniz’s practice, the images exert a powerful force on the attention of the viewer—in particular, the portrait of Ronaldo, in which his serene face emerges from the surrounding soil. Even if a degree of analysis is present in his perspective, Muniz’s vision of Portugal is too poetic. On the one hand, he has examined how clichéd imagery functions as an ideological mechanism, yet on the other hand he has embarked on a celebration of the country. More nationalistic tribute than hardheaded critique, this body of work is nevertheless testimony to how an artist can engage passionately with a community’s imaginary.
