Ron Mueck

Hans Ronald Mueck ( ˈmjuːɛk or ˈmuːɪk , * 1958 in Melbourne , Australia) is an Australian sculptor who is best known for his oversized, realistic human sculptures made of fiberglass and silicone , the surface texture of which is characterized by a level of naturalness that was never achieved before. The themes of his works include birth, life, youth, old age and death.

Life

Mueck is the son of German immigrants; his father worked as a toy maker. In 1983 Ron Mueck left Australia and now lives in London, where Jim Henson hired him for his team of puppet artists for the series Sesame Street and the Muppet Show . Before he became a freelance sculptor, he had worked for children's television: he developed the character of the griffin for the 1985 film Dreamchild (1985) and the special effects for the film Labyrinth (1986) with David Bowie . In 1990 he opened an advertising agency in London and produced sculptures for advertising photography, which, however, were often only photographed from a certain angle. Dissatisfied with this activity, he began to orientate himself artistically. The opportunity arose in 1996 when he created the sculpture Pinocchio for an exhibition by his mother-in-law Paula Rego , a Portuguese artist, in the Hayward Gallery . Through Rego he got to know the important art collector Charles Saatchi , who began to collect Mueck's works and commissioned new ones. This is how the sculpture Dead Dad was created , which was exhibited in the Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts the following year. Since this artistic breakthrough, he has lived in London . He recently moved his studio to the Isle of Wight .

style

Artistically, Mueck's style can be assigned to hyperrealism , an art movement that does not choose abstraction but the exaggeration of reality as a means. Hyperreal figures were created by John De Andrea and Duane Hanson . While Andrea specialized in nudes and Hanson deals thematically with social milieus, Mueck's themes are birth, life and death. His figures are worked down to the smallest detail: through skin pigments, wrinkles and the smallest hair, they seem to be alive. Typical for Mueck is the attempt to change the perception of the otherwise perfectly reproduced figure by changing the size. The boy in his oversized 500 kg plastic Boy ( ARoS Aarhus Art Museum ) seems vulnerable and attackable despite his size. His sculpture Dead Dad , which depicts his dead father, is only 102 cm long.

Art market

In 2002, his plastic Pregnant Wife was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia for A $ 800,000.

Quotes

“I wanted to do something that a photo wouldn't do justice to. […] Although I spend a lot of time with the surface, it is the inner workings that I want to capture. [...] My work is my statement. "

- Ron Mueck : art - Das Kunstmagazin , 5/2003

Exhibitions

• 1998 Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London
• 2000 James Cohan Gallery , New York City
• 2001 Biennale , Venice
• 2002 Hirshhorn Museum , Washington
• 2003 Berlin Hamburger Bahnhof
• 2003 National Gallery , London
• 2004 Saatchi Gallery , London
• 2005 Cartier Foundation , Paris
• 2006 Royal Scottish Academy Building , Edinburgh
• 2006/2007 Brooklyn Museum , New York City
• 2010 National Gallery of Victoria , Melbourne
• 2013 Cartier Foundation , Paris
• 2014 Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro
• 2016 Kunsthistorisches Museum , Vienna, Theseus Temple

Galleries

• James Cohan Gallery, New York
• Anthony d´Offay Gallery, London

See also

• Duane Hanson
• John De Andrea
• George Segal
• Sam Jinks

literature

• Heiner Bastian (Ed.): Ron Mueck. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit 2003, ISBN 3-7757-1337-9 .
• Susanna Greeves, Colin Wiggins: Ron Mueck (National Gallery of London). National Gallery Co Ltd, 2003, ISBN 1-85709-167-1 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Ron Mueck in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Ron Mueck  in the German Digital Library
• Search for Ron Mueck in the SPK digital portal of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
• Ron Mueck at artfacts.net
• Brooklyn Museum solo exhibition Ron Mueck from Nov 2006 / Feb 2007
• Alexandra Matzner on Ron Mueck's sculpture "Man in a Boat" in the Theseus Temple, Vienna, 2016 , accessed on April 20, 2016

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans Ronald MUECK , Companies House UK
2. ↑ Ron Muek Photo Realistic Artist ( Memento of the original from August 13, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at artmolds.com. 
3. ↑ Alexandra Matzner on Ron Mueck's sculpture "Man in a Boat" in the Theseus Temple, Vienna, 2016 , accessed on April 20, 2016.
4. ↑ Ute Vorkoeper: The size of fear . Ron Mueck's giants instill fear just because of their size, because there is always the question in the room: And what if it does move? , November 23, 2005. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
5. ↑ Page of the museum on the exhibition ( Memento of the original from July 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed April 28, 2014. 
6. ↑ Anne Katrin Fessler: Ron Mueck: In the nutshell towards nowhere. Der Standard , April 20, 2016