Vik Muniz: The Problem In Waste Land

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“Behind every great fortune is a crime.” The nature of the world we live in and the art industry are complex. Being an artist is a tough job. Well-known artists usually get a lot of media attention on any regular basis while some up-and-coming artists, get little or no such attention. Therefore, artist are always competing among themselves to come up with the best work to captivate people, stay on top, make a name for themselves and also a living allowance. Paintings, prints, drawing, crafts, photography are all forms of art which many artists specialize and utilize to display their creativity, sometimes bring awareness to certain social issue and also exploit the less fortunate for their fame. Some well-known artists like Vik Muniz in the …show more content…

Even though they recycle and recycle the amount of trash is endless. According to Vik Muniz he wanted to help them find a solution to their trash problem, but he never once stopped to think about or offer a solution to the problem. All he did was get them to continue to work picking up the trash and using it to create his art project. Vik Muniz did not help the people in Waste Land address the problems they face on the daily basis. He instead hired only certain people to appear on camera and work for him, so he could create an art project. Once they created the art project it was very unclear how this would have benefited the people. Those couple of payments were only temporary; he did not address what the future held for them. Vik took one of the pickers to London with him to sell a piece of art and the art sold for fifty thousand dollars. With that being said the rich people who bought and continue to buy Muniz’s work fail to place any real value on the environment or even the human lives that created the art. The one-time payment of 50 thousand dollars can only help for a while. However that does that help with the obvious problem which is excess consumption that leads to environmental and human hazards. Waste Land shows how the rich exploit the poor for their own

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