Vik Muniz’s Brazilian Pad Is an Artist’s Paradise
For more than 25 years Vik Muniz, the Brazilian conceptual artist, has made regular trips to Salvador, a port city that is the capital of the country’s Bahia region. He and his wife Malu Barretto, who are based in Rio de Janeiro and New York, have always loved the coastal town for its animated civic life and vibrant blend of music, gastronomy, religion, art, and architecture.
“Culturally speaking, Salvador is the most interesting place in Brazil, in my opinion,” says Muniz, a native of São Paulo who is acclaimed for his photographic recreations of iconic images using unexpected materials such as chocolate syrup, toys, and garbage. “It’s a pan-African mecca, really.”
Muniz and Barretto, an events planner, are now actively participating in Salvador’s cultural landscape. They recently restored a 19th-century cliffside rowhouse in Santo Antônio Além do Carmo, a residential neighborhood perched high above the Bay of All Saints. A three-minute walk from their house, with rooms for when their four children visit, is another historic building they have renovated. This annex houses an entertaining space with a veranda overlooking the water, Muniz’s office and art atelier, a music studio for their oldest child, and three small apartments they offer to friends. “We consider this an extension of the house,” Muniz says.
Brenda Bello, a New York–based architect who designed the couple’s apartment in Paris and Muniz’s studio in Brooklyn, provided the plans for their Salvador home. But during the pandemic shutdown, Muniz and Barretto managed the hands-on renovation themselves. In 2022 they purchased the nearby building, originally two multifamily homes that had been abandoned for decades. The artist, who calls himself an “amateur architect,” worked with Bello to reconfigure the structures into breezy open spaces that wrap around a courtyard filled with tropical plants.
Meanwhile, Barretto and a colleague, Felipe Cipriano, designed the interiors of both the house and the center, furnishing them with chairs upholstered in Brazilian fabrics and light fixtures hand-woven from cane and string. “I wanted to do something very simple and organic to feel like Bahia,” says Barretto, who has since launched an interior design firm, Toca, with restaurant projects in São Paulo.
Atrium
The plant-filled atrium at the center of Vik Muniz and Malu Barretto’s studio building in Salvador, Brazil, which they designed with architect Brenda Bello and landscape designer Alex Sá.
Exterior
Barretto and Muniz walk from their rowhouse to their nearby annex, which is housed in a pair of converted 19th-century townhouses.
Office
Muniz’s office has shelving made of wood reclaimed on-site. Cocktail table by Brasigran; ceramic vase from a local market; sculpture (right of sofa) by Muniz.
Hallway
The bench was designed by Barretto, and the planter is from a local market. Artwork by Genaro de Carvalho (left) and Abdias do Nascimento.
Bar
Muniz, a former bartender, designed the bar in Vitória Régia quartzite from Brasigran. Pendants from Tok&Stok.
Entry
The main entrance is a gallery space with rotating displays. In a hallway, the custom woven pendants are based on fish traps. Sculpture (left) by Jose Dávila; artworks by André Griffo (left), Alberto Pitta (right), and Artur Lescher (ceiling).
The couple visit Salvador at least half a dozen times a year, always staying the whole month of January before Carnival. This year the new building allowed them to host activities ranging from concerts and meals to late night DJ parties, standup comedy shows, and artist talks, with hundreds of people in attendance.
For Muniz, the studio in Salvador has also been invigorating. There, in 2022, he was inspired to make the portrait Florinda, based on a photograph of the Afro-Brazilian woman Florinda Anna do Nascimento, a prosperous 19th-century jewelry trader. He used glittery bits of shaved metal to compose the likeness of this historical figure, accented with actual jewelry from the collection of an antiques dealer in Salvador, which he then photographed to make the final image.
Muniz, who worked as a bartender in the 1980s at the Palladium in New York, designed the sumptuous bar in the center’s event space, with a striking installation of bottles filled with cachaça, Brazil’s sugarcane alcohol, which he infused with herbs. “Some of these have medicinal powers, and some are aphrodisiacs,” says Muniz, who still plays bartender at their smaller dinners with friends.
He procured his ingredients for the liquors in the bustling San Joaquim market, one of his favorite places in the city. He loves its unique wares, which range from baskets and textiles to all sorts of religious items. In the heart of the market, directly in front of a bar, Muniz has opened a small white-cube gallery, inviting artists such as Anish Kapoor and Beatriz Milhazes to exhibit their work. “People [in the market] drink beer and look at art,” he says. “For me it’s important, because it shows that contemporary art is not just for people who can buy it.”
The couple are constantly adding to their collections, and many of the works come from Bahia. They display these objects—from 18th-century wood and ivory statuettes of saints to colorful indigenous ceramics and African masks—throughout their home and the center. Muniz especially prizes his maps of Salvador, some of which date from the 16th century. He displays them on the walls side by side with the stunning water views. “There are battles, invasions, lots of really cool pirate stories,” Muniz says of the maps. He also rareley misses the citywide Afro-Brazilian festival and boat procession, which takes place every February 2 in celebration of Iemanjá, the goddess of the sea. “This bay,” Muniz says, gesturing at the panorama, “has been the stage for all going on here.” ◾
This story originally appeared in the March 2025 issue of Elle Decor. SUBSCRIBE
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