Ron Mueck

This work consists of 100 sculpted giant human skulls, arranged by the artist to create an environment specific to each museum space. Since its debut in Melbourne, Australia, in 2017, subsequent configurations have each revealed a new side to the work and the presentation at the Mori Art Museum will be equally unique. The audience is confronted with the complexity of the skull’s physical form whilst their journey through the installation allows time to reflect on the skulls’ powerful presence.
The skull as a subject matter has repeatedly appeared throughout Western art history alongside the Latin-derived concept of “Memento Mori”(A reminder of the inevitability of death). It also evokes medicine, anatomy, and archaeology, and is frequently used in contemporary popular culture, making it a universal motif. The title “Mass” has various meanings: things piled up like a mountain, large quantities or groups, and Christian Mass, among others. These skulls’ subtle variations differ in color tone and facial details, suggesting they represent a collection of individuals. However, there are no clues to reveal who they are, and they confront us as a collective group.

“The human skull is a complex object.
A potent, graphic icon we recognize immediately.
At once familiar and exotic, it repels and attracts simultaneously.
It is impossible to ignore, demanding our attention at a subconscious level.”

- Ron Mueck

This work depicts a mother whose hands are occupied with heavy shopping bags while she carries a baby in the fold of her coat. Her appearance is not idealized, and her exhausted expression reveals a daily life where she seems crushed by the weight of everyday responsibilities. Made smaller than life-size, the mother’s fatigue, fragility, and vulnerability are emphasized. Moreover, the mother’s gaze into the distance never meets either the baby’s or the viewer’s eyes.
This work might be a contemporary interpretation of the “Madonna and Child,” a staple of Western art history. However, the work actually originated from a real-life encounter. The artist spotted a mother with orange shopping bags carrying a baby at a traffic light intersection near his studio in North London. He sketched her on the back of a parking ticket. Mueck expresses the poignant scenes found within the daily life of a metropolis.

This work, featuring a man with large wings on his back sitting in a chair, is one of Mueck’s early masterpieces. Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection held in 1997 brought the artist into the spotlight. The exhibition toured to New York (Brooklyn Museum, 1999-2000), where this work was exhibited. Angel was created after seeing Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s Allegory with Venus and Time (c. 1754-1758) at the National Gallery in London. In the original painting, Venus is accompanied by an elderly winged man representing “Time,” and Mueck drew inspiration from this figure. The man expressed in this work is small compared to the human body, looking downward and somewhat sadly lost in thought, differing from the typical image of angels.

This large-scale work, measuring 6.5 meters long and approximately 4 meters wide, is a giant portrayal of a middleaged woman lying in bed. Though depicting an ordinary moment of daily life, her expression as she supports her chin with her hand and gazes upward invites various interpretations―anxiety, longing, contemplation. While the monumental scale of the work is surprising, viewers find themselves staring intently at the woman’s face positioned at eye level, wondering what she might be thinking. Additionally, because she gazes across the room, never quite in our eyeline, viewers can scrutinize the work’s details without confronting the woman, creating a relationship between artwork and viewer that differs from human-to-human interaction.
This work was exhibited in Collection of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2006), and because an image of the work was used as the key visual for this exhibition, it became well-known in Japan.

This work presents the artist’s own sleeping face at approximately four times actual size. The work is mounted on a pedestal, and the face appears relaxed, the slightly open mouth creating the impression that breathing sounds could emerge. However, the back of the work is hollow, raising questions about whether this man exists or not. Similarly, if this were a true mask, the face should not appear drooping, raising doubts about whether this face is human or a mask. This work can be said to be typical of Mueck’s work, showing the exquisite balance between reality and unreality that characterizes his pieces. The title might simply indicate the plain fact that this is merely a mask, or it might suggest that while the artist is expressing the features of his own face, it is nothing more than a consciously constructed self-image.