Sculpture - Ron Mueck

ed's note - some of the photos on here have been removed as they contravene the Code of Conduct - you can search for them easily enough on Google Images if you are interested.


Ok ... I've blogged about Ron Mueck before ... and received a number of google hits as a result ... they currently have a mini retrospective on at the NGV which I believe finishes very soon. You really must attend this if you're able. Its unbelievable! Unlike the suburbanite nazi over at Langwarrin, the NGV does not restrict photo taking ... as long as flash photography is not used. So people were just clicking away, like us ... trying to get both perspective and detail ...
 

 
They say the devil is in the detail and it certainly is emblematic of Mueck's work. The wrinkly natal skin and bloody discharge all here in gargantuan proportions ... the toenails are so incredibly real even in this version of latex hyper-reality simply called A Girl ... there's something slightly disturbing in Mueck's work ... and the effect is no less exacting when the proportions are shrunk ... witness Dead Dad:


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Its hard to describe how unnervingly substantive this sculpture is. If you have ever seen a corpse before .. then you will understand ... how something so recognisably human appears truly lifeless ... and in so doing ... shrinks to almost nothing ... the scale of this is so apt in representing that excise of corporeality. This comes through in a similar, if rather less personal, work Old Woman in Bed:
 

 
Here Death has yet to arrive, but it is immenent presence is well and trully felt ... although in this case there's a sense of welcome relief ... perhaps that is simply my take on it.

 
We already saw Wild man in Langwarrin .. but this time we tried to capture his eerie uncomfortable stare and some of the skin details like the surface depressions on his elbow:
 
 

 
In an opposing way, close ups of the woman in In Bed presented a sense of calm and contemplation ... with a hint of resignation:
 

 
M was especially taken by Mask II ... particularly the fact that its hollow at the back ... a broken shard of some humungous mug ...
 

 
In addition to the Two Women that the gallery actually owns ... we also got to see Man in a Boat:
 

Woman with sticks pic removed

Still Life

 
and the relatively recent Drift:
 

 
But hands down my favourite was Youth ... a relatively small sculpture in scale ... but what a punch!
 

 
After finishing with Ron Mueck, we went and had a look at our chairs and also the photography section which is well worth the hike up to the top floor ... we also stumbled on a work which I should have taken note of ... situated in a darkened alcove was a ladder made of led lights with a reflective disc above and below ... giving the illusion of the ladder going on forever ad infinitum in both directions:
 
 

This effect was oddly enough repeated in the toilets at the gallery ...
 

 
After a brief stint people watching with a coffee we headed off home to a bowl of yummy Chiangmai styled curry noodles. One of those perfect saturdays .... a warm Autumnal day on the streets of Melbourne covered in hail-shredded leaf debris with a gap toothed blondie swimming in the chlorine choked waters outside the gallery ... aah Melbourne!! You wouldn't want to be anywhere else ... would you.
 
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Comments:
 
dan cope wrote:


heheh totally. I still find his work confronting though. xx
15 Mar