I was very lucky to be able to see Ron Muecks’ Sculpture’s at the Christchurch Art Gallery
Hyper-real means “involving or characterized by particularly realistic graphic representation”. "His massive, hyperreal figures are obsessively detailed, down to every pore and wrinkle." (Pescovitz, D.2010) Human hair is used for the small-scale figures and coarser horse hair or acrylic fibre is used for the larger than life-size figures. All the hairs were attached to pores by clip individually.
He uses all the properties of figurative sculpture (pose, gesture, facial expression, scale and realism) to elicit an empathetic, emotional response from us. (Hartley, 2006) They are all extraordinarily lifelike figures but none of them are life-size, “sometimes colossal, sometimes miniature, which resonate with deep emotion”. (Amor, P., Trudgeon, M. & Cradwick, C. ,2010)
They invite touch as much as looking, and in subverting our expectations about scale, he distances himself from traditional photorealist sculptors like Duane Hanson and pushes us into the more uncomfortable zones of the human condition. (Landi, 2009).
Smaller than life size sculpture:
Dead Dad (1996-97) 20x38x102cmA smaller than life-size sculpture of the artist's dead father will be displayed on its own "in a shrinelike environment". (Sharpe, 2010).
Two women 2005 82.6 x 48.7 x 41.5 cm
Drift 2009 118 x 96 x 21 cm
Youth 2009 65 x 28 x 16 cmLarger than life size sculpture:
A girl 2006 110.5 x 501.0 x 134.5 cm
Still life 2009 215 x 89 x 50 cm
Wild man 2005 285 x 162 x 108 cm
In bed 2005 161.9 x 649.9 x 295.0 cm
Pregnant woman 2002 252.0 x 73.0 x 68.9 cmHumanism is a system of thought that considers human beings, rather than the church, as able to decide their own morals, truths and behaviours. “Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.” (“Humanist Manifesto III”, 2003) An example of Humanism can be seen in the work titled Pregnant Woman. It’s more than 8 feet high. At this size, it is hallucinatory- the human form stretched larger than seems humanly possible. Pregnant woman has been called a modern Mary, a contemporary earth mother and a ‘hymn to the beauty of life-giving’. (Amor, P., Trudgeon, M. & Cradwick, C. ,2010) It’s a beautiful period when women are pregnant. It shows the power of feminality. This work also reminds me of Jan van Eyck’s The Anolfini Portrait. The woman with the face of Mary who looks like she is pregnant.
In his work, Mueck has dealt with the full cycle of life such as birth, infancy, youth, adolescence, sexual maturity, middle-age, old age and death. (Hartley, 2006)
The sculpture Two Women consists of two elderly women engaging in gossip. They are whisper to each other and from their sideways glances and conspiratorial expressions we can see they are not entirely benign. Maybe they are talking something bad about their neighbor or they want to see someting bad happen to someone else. There are not sweet, little old ladies but potential mischief-makers. (Hartley, 2006)
References:
Amor, P., Trudgeon, M. & Cradwick, C. (Ed.).(2010). Ron Mueck. Victoria , Australia : National Gallery of Victoria
Hartley, K. (2006). Ron Mueck. Edinburgh , UK : National Galleries of Scotland
Landi, A. (2009). Ron Mueck: Beyond The Movies. Sculpture Review 58(3), 24-31.
Pescovitz, D. (2010) Ron Mueck's Hyperreal Giants. Retrieved January 22, 2010,
