Ron Mueck

I was absolutely blown out of the water by Ron Mueck’s photo-realistic sculptures.  His sculptures are absolutely incredible—I have never seen anything like it. While you’re first struck by the amount of detail that goes into creating one of these, and the magnitude of the realism depicted, there is a whole other level waiting to be interacted with. Something that was present throughout all of the pieces was the gaze-the interaction between the subject(s) and the space, or the other subjects present within the room they were in. Mueck creates a space that allows you to interact with the sculptures, despite the scaled down/blown up sizes of his subjects. The interaction that struck me the most was the communication between Drift, that depicts an obviously wealthy man on a wall, his gaze averted and covered up. He is elevated, and in a Christ-like position. Almost directly across from him, the smallest sculpture throughout the gallery, is a sculpture called Youth that depicts a young, African-American man with a wound in his side. Mueck played with scale, size, color, and position in order to guide you straight to Drift, while you blatantly ignore Youth, who obviously needs attention. Implicating the viewer in that manner was absolutely shocking and extremely brilliant. This shower was perfectly curated and the works were so intriguing and amazing—I have never been so engrossed by sculpture before. 

I was extremely disappointed that we were unable to take photographs within this exhibition because I don't think there is an adequate representation within my drawings or analysis to sum up what I saw there. But, I was lucky enough to find some images online that I felt represented the works I mentioned quite well.