After obtaining compensation for a shooting in which he had been involved, Vik Muniz left Brazil for the United States and began his artistic career. He's still considered among experimental and multidisciplinary artists, as his art develops through different mediums and languages. He realizes photographs, works with compostable and organic materials, reproductions of famous works of art in different styles. 

He has held exhibitions at such prestigious institutions as, just to mention some example, the International Center of Photography in New York, the Museu de Arte Moderna in São Paulo, the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome and the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art of Dublin. 
His works are also exhibited in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute in Chicago, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museu de Arte Moderna in São Paulo, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Tate Gallery in London, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. 

In 2001 Muniz represented the Brazilian Pavilion at the 49th Venice Biennale. 

The artist was the protagonist of an Oscar-nominated documentary entitled Waste Land (2010), which tells of the artist’s collaborations with a group of catadores (waste collectors and sorters) from the Jardim Gramacho district of the Brazilian city of Duque de Caxias north of Rio de Janeiro. At this site, one of the largest landfills in the world, Muniz worked for three years alongside the catadores, using the recyclable waste they collected to create monumental portraits.

Muniz was later appointed UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for his contributions to education and social development.