Ron Mueck at the National Gallery (National Gallery of London)

by SusannaGreeves (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.27

  Ron Mueck first came to major critical attention during the Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1997. Usually cast in silicone and acrylic, his work is celebrated for its life-like detail -although his manipulation of scale means his sculptures often evoke reality rather than directly imitate it. Since 2000, Mueck has been Associate Artist at the National Gallery, London, drawing inspiration from the collection to create new sculpture for an exhibition that will open there on 19th March 2003. This volume, the catalogue of the exhibition, gives an overview of the artist's work to date and previews the sculptor's responses to the gallery's paintings, reproducing the pieces.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $12.90

  Visitors to the 2001 Venice Biennale were highly impressed with the sculpture Boy--a child who stood five meters high--by the London-based artist Ron Mueck. Harald Szeemann called the sculpture the sphinx of the exhibition, and it soon became its landmark. The monumental, crouching figure of a youth makes a vulnerable, defensive impression and yet, its watchful eye seems to miss nothing. Mueck's human figures are always technically perfect, absolutely realistic, deliberately undersized or oversized. He first models them in clay and then takes a hollow cast which he fills with silicone or fiberglass. The finished sculptures show delicate networks of veins, fine hairs; they even seem to breathe. Their perfection is always in the service of content, however: Viewers are touched and set thinking by the emotional quality of figures like Pregnant Woman or Dead Dad--created by the artist after the death of his father. With great autonomous presence, exhibiting human features yet completely artificial, Mueck's artworks refer to fundamental questions and allow a wealth of associations.