PEANUT BUTTER & JELLY ART
Jonathan van Loon
In the 21st century it can be hard to tell
whether a work of art is copy or an original
artwork. Reproductions have come a long
way. Double Mona Lisa, after Warhol, or
PBJ Mona Lisa by Vik Muniz is not trying
to be a faithful copy of either Warhol’s
Double Mona Lisa or Da Vinci’s Mona
Lisa. It doesn’t pretend to be a faithful
copy of an original. If this is not truthful
reproduction, then what is it? As Jean
Baudrillard put it in his text Simulacra and
Simulation: “To dissimulate is to pretend
not to have what one has. To simulate is
to feign to have what one doesn’t have.”1
Muniz’ work borrows the image of Warhol
and adds another layer of meaning to it.
The rough spread of the peanut butter has
a direct connotation with a PBJ sandwich,
it lacks the precision in trying to be a
perfect reproduction.
Muniz reacts on this by saying: “Art is
primarily a copy. I don't believe in
originality as much as I believe in
individuality […] the subject in its aura of
originality is just a mere excuse for
copying”2 He argues that our copying skills
have evolved through technology and that
originality is always questionable,
dependent on its aura. Introducing a new
medium does not destroy the existing
ones. To take a work of Warhol and
tracing it using a different medium is not
considered a literal reproduction. The use
of existing images is for the purpose of
taking a theme and to create a new
context for the viewer.
Andy Warhol, Double Mona Lisa, 1963
Vik Muniz, Double Mona Lisa, After Warhol, (Peanut
Butter + Jelly) 1999
Muniz works on many different scales and
uses a lot of different materials. He is best
known for taking famous imagery from art
history and pop culture and the use of
rudimentary materials like sugar, soil,
string, wire, chocolate or syrup to recreate
images that are well known in a different
context. Some would argue that taking
those images is a copyright violation.
1
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
(1981), p. 3
Warhol’s Double Mona Lisa was a work
that commented on the hype created by
the blockbuster exhibition of the Mona Lisa
in 1963, where it travelled from The
Louvre to Washington DC. It also
commented on the modernity of the
Industrial Revolution. Tools for mass
production have become available for
artists like Warhol through, for example,
screen printing. Taking existing imagery
and reproducing them have never been
this easy. These reproductions of artworks
have turned them into a commodity. Socalled ‘high art’ became available to the
large public. Muniz has a take on this idea,
by taking Warhol’s work and translating it
2
Mark Magill, Vik Muniz, BOMB No. 73 (Fall, 2000),
p. 33
into today’s world (or in his case 1999).
With the use of peanut butter and jelly,
materials that are available to everyone,
he degrades the work into something so
common that it is almost insulting to the
original. At the same time, you could argue
that the image of the Mona Lisa nowadays
has become such a known image that is
has become just as regular as a PBJ
sandwich.
Looking back at Muniz’ way of working;
the way he exhibits his work has nothing
to do with any so-called original. When he
finishes a work, he takes a photo of the
artwork to then destroy the original. To link
this back to Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa you
could say that it an endless string of
copies of the original. Technically
speaking; the Mona Lisa is not an original
itself, it is only a reproduction of Da Vinci’s
model. The question is what Muniz’ work
then still has to do with Da Vinci’s. Walter
Benjamin says about this in 1936:
“Technical reproduction can put the copy
of the original into situations which would
be out of reach for the original itself.”3
Since the original has been copied so
many times one could argue that Muniz’
work, through technical reproduction, is
out of reach of Da Vinci’s original.
original but have a completely different
intention.
By destroying his work and only
showcasing the reproduction you can tell
that Muniz is very aware. His work is
taking characteristics such as fame,
accessibility and reproduction and while
doing that it adds a new layer of meaning.
Muniz is copying Warhol’s tricks of
reproduction. But what can he still add? Is
it intent, context or the medium? With this
in mind: this reproduction is not critiquing
the original of Warhol, maybe it is more
like an homage?
Comparing the Ôtsuka Museum of Art, as
mentioned in the text of Amelia Groom4 to
Muniz’ work: they both have a similar and
a drastically different take on exhibiting
and interacting with the public. They’re
similar in their way of showcasing a
photographical reproduction of an original
artwork. But the difference lays in the
purpose of the reproduction. Where the
Ôtsuka Museum denies the temporality of
an artwork and tries to ‘freeze an image in
time’, Muniz underlines this temporality by
using materials that are very vulnerable to
real world conditions. They’re both
showcased as a reproduction of the
3
Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction (excerpt), 1936
4
Amelia Groom, Permanent Collection, 2016