Les martyres de Marat et de Sebastião Une légende révolutionnaire mise à jour

This article takes its inspiration from the martyrdom of Jean-Paul Marat to reveal how Brazilian artist Vik Muniz repurposes the legend in Marat (Sebastião) (2008). After delving into the martyr myth as imagined by the revolutionary in his own words, we look at commemorative objects created after his death, including David’s Marat’s Death (1793). Then we see how Vik Muniz recast Marat as a man of our time, in the guise of a garbage collector in one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest ghettos.