Ron Mueck

This work, featuring a man with large wings on his back sitting on a stool, 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 Mueck saw 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 work presents a surreal scene where an elderly man in underwear sits at a table confronting a chicken. In their silence, a tension hangs in the air between them. The old man leans forward with clenched hands and mouth slightly open, appearing confused and wary. Meanwhile, the chicken remains motionless, casting a sharp gaze and seeming ready to flee at any moment. However, what exactly is happening remains shrouded in mystery, stimulating our imagination. The scale of the work is smaller than actual size, creating an effect that draws viewers deeper into the work’s world.
The sculpture was created for Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand, and this exhibition also displays a short film of the same title related to its realization.

A middle-aged man’s head emerges from the darkness. Although Mueck often uses exhibition lighting to enhance emotional character, here the darkness surrounding the sculpture is incorporated into the piece itself. As the viewers approach and enter the darkened doorway, they too are enveloped in this silent darkness and are immersed in the man’s psychological presence. By keeping the viewers within the threshold, unable to enter and walk around the sculpture, Mueck invites us to explore the depth of feeling rather than surface detail.
Initially, Mueck conceived of a self-portrait, following on from the large hanging Mask (1997) and Mask II (2002), a portrayal of the artist sleeping. However, there is an anecdote that when a photographer visited the studio to take reference shots for him to work from. Mueck was so moved by the intensity of the man’s own anguished face that he decided to make it the subject of this sculpture.

The work depicts a teenage girl wearing a swimsuit, leaning back against the wall, arms by her sides and fists clenched as she tilts her head forward and looks to the side, avoiding the viewers’ gaze. This self-conscious and sensitive adolescent appears unable to hide her embarrassment and awkwardness about her rapidly changing mind and body. Her expression suggests she is extremely shy, even appearing somewhat frightened. Standing approximately two meters tall - larger than life-size - with extremely elongated legs and feet that seem too large, she creates a sense of dissonance for viewers. You begin to question whether she is even a real human being. She is truly a “ghost.”
Ghost was originally created in 1998 and entered the collection of Tate in London soon after. The piece in this exhibition is an Artist’s Proof created in 2014, when Mueck re-sculpted the figure entirely from scratch; it serves as a revisiting of the sentiment of the original. The two versions, though created with the same impetus, differ quite noticeably in detail and expression, while sharing the same sentiment.

This large-scale work, measuring 6.5 meters long and approximately 4 meters wide, is a giant portrayal of a middle-aged 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.

A middle-aged man sits naked in the bow of an aging boat. With no oars, it is evident that he has drifted here from somewhere else, yet why he is naked and where he is headed remain a mystery. Have we drifted into his world, or has he drifted into ours? The hull of the boat creates a boundary which isolates him, and although the sculpture occupies our physical space, we seem unable to interrupt its voyage or to distract the man’s attention as he cranes his neck to see what lies ahead. There may be a feeling of vulnerability, even uncertainty, but there is also a sense of the inevitable progress of life’s journey.
From 2000 to 2002, Mueck served as Associate Artist at the National Gallery in London, where artists have an extended opportunity to study the collection closely. The themes of “birth” and “motherhood” are prevalent in the sculptures he made during this period, which perhaps reflect the influence of the Old Masters he encountered there. Mueck was delighted to discover that one such painting, The Immaculate Conception (1618-1619) by Diego Velazquez, which Mueck saw at the Gallery, includes the depiction of a small ship as a symbol referring to the Holy Mother as vessel for the birth of Christ.

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.

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 Catholic 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.

In a scene reminiscent of a fairytale or folklore, a naked woman struggles to grasp a large and unwieldy bundle of sticks, which seems unwilling to be contained. Her hair is disheveled, and her flesh scarred with scratches as she arches back, trying to keep them from dragging on the ground.
Why is she naked, and what is the purpose of her quest? These immediate questions remain unanswered. Mueck often creates unusual and surreal situations in his works. Rich in narrative potential, but deliberately ambiguous, they invite viewers to construct their own stories.

A teenage boy and girl stand close together, as he appears to confide something to her. At first glance, it seems like a scene from an innocent teenage love story. However, from behind you discover he is not holding her hand but forcibly gripping her wrist, which prompts a questioning of the power dynamics between them, and your perception of the work suddenly shifts. As always, the narrative is ambiguous, but an unsettling atmosphere pervades.
With all of Mueck’s two-person sculptures, viewers find themselves drawn into a three-way dynamic. Enhanced by the small scale of the figures, less than one meter in height, adult viewers might find themselves in the position of older siblings or parents-guardians who want to watch over the fate of this small couple, or perhaps feel compelled to intercede on the girl’s behalf. Younger viewers might sense the complexity of human domestic relationships.