ron mueck is another amazing guy.
he is an ny based australian sculptor if I'm not wrong and he's also another hyperrealist sculptor and mainly uses silicon or resin/fiberglass to construct
his sculptures.
in some ways, both hanson and mueck are similar. they both create hyperrealist sculptures and somehow both deal with the human condition. there are slight difference in both of them as well; hanson focuses more on the mundane and banality of life, emphasizing insignificant ordinary people and actions, attending to stereotypes in the american society. mueck on the other hand focuses more on the process of life, for example, birth, death, pregnant women, and sometimes a little on the mundane life as well. however, the most significant difference is how both artist treat the scale of their sculptures. hanson's sculptures are mostly life sized, such that people can relate to it and there is direct interaction between the sculptures and the viewers. mueck's sculptures on the other hand are either extremely big or smaller than life sized. the difference in size of the sculptures and the viewers have a different impact as compared to hanson's sculptures. the effect of the scale (interaction between the artwork and the viewers) will be discussed later.
-acting god? creating human?
a girl
1. theme, irony and size
In the main gallery, Mueck’s 17-foot-long figure A Girl lies frozen and alone, her giant baby fists clenched and her enormous newborn eyes struggling to open for the first time. Known for using scale to distort viewer perception of his subjects, Mueck crafts his sculptures out of proportion in order to elicit a psychological presence of frailty or dominance.Demonstrating the monstrosity of birth and the beginning of life with A Girl, Mueck’s exaggeration of size and life situation swings to the other end of the spectrum with Old Woman in Bed, a diminutive sculpture (less than a foot in length) of an old woman nearing the end of her days. Situated in the room next to A Girl, the woman is seemingly curled up asleep underneath a swath of blankets. But upon closer viewing, her eyes and mouth are half-open, with heavy lids barely able to blink and thin lips parted as if taking a last gasp.
Banal items of everyday life, when grouped in the thousands, compels our reconsideration of their relevance around our lives. Much in the same manner, Ron Mueck’s hyper-realistic sculptures amplifies human emotions and situations, forcing one to reconsider the relationship that we all share with one another.
“Ron Mueck does two things very well: he gets under the skins of his hyper-real figures, and he uses scale to expose vulnerabilities. [There is] a supine newborn baby the size of a small bathroom, its fetal blood not fully wiped away and its umbilical cord dangling like a thick, twisted rope. Each figure’s eyes mirror his or her soul. [There is] a hairy nude giant with crossed eyes seems fearful of something small. [There is] a woman the size of a Manhattan bedroom stares over the covers of her oversized bed, unready to face the day. [There is] a black man’s giant round face exudes ambition and, perhaps, frustration. [There is] a naked couple curled, spoon-style, against each other, sharing their warmth but not their thoughts.” (James Cohan)
there is always irony present in mueck's work. for instance, the size vs the subject matter. for instance, in the work 'a girl' the newborn girl is blown up to the size of a toilet (maybe) whereas 'dead dad' is smaller than life size and the subject matter is a dead man. the juxtaposition of the meaning o the size and meaning of the subject matter is obvious.
huge = overwhelming, strong, brave
subj matter = small newborn baby, have yet to experience anything
small= frail, weak, insignificant
subj matter= old man, experienced many things, full of knowledge
there are different ways to interpret the meanings. for example, the baby is still young, and can absorb and learn many new things, hence the size, all big, full of hope. the old man is already dead, no matter how many things he can learn, he can't because he is no longer alive, hence showing how small and insignificant he is.
and i just realized how tough it is to categorize things because they are all inter related. i guess i'll just stop and continue at the interaction with audience part haha
woman in bed
2. interaction between viewers and artwork
“It is not that we identify with the figures; rather, we wonder who they are and how they are going to resolve whatever dilemmas they seem to face. We empathize. Since scale and size vary throughout Mueck’s work, viewers have off subconscious relations to the spatial displacements between the sculptures. We approach the large ones as though they were giants, even though most of them seem unsure of themselves. Some small ones seem less fragile. Mueck reverses our usual notion that larger is stronger and smaller is weaker. The baby compounds this direction by being huge, strong, and fragile all at once. It is built like a tank, but the unfocused and inward eyes reveal that it cannot serve its own needs. Mueck’s visceral figures engage viewers in what ends up being a philosophical investigation of the human condition.” (James Cohan)
I think the main reason that Ron Mueck’s work is so powerful and affecting is that they all convey themes and feelings that we all understand - anxiety in life, fear of death, unexplainable and illogical phobias, that inherent need to be loved and accepted, the slow burning of desire - these are all emotions that we all can relate to in one way or another. And they become ever more so relatable when projected through massive depictions.every single detail is reflected on the sculptures, from blemishes and moles to eye bags. such blemishes are often covered up in real life and is hidden from the world. such blemishes can only be seen by the person themselves, after the clothes and makeup fall off. however, in his sculpture, everything is clearly shown. its like staring into a mirror, the sculptures are a reflection of us. so technically, viewing mueck's work is like looking at yourself in the mirror, with your flaws shown to you. it is because of this that the audience can connect so well with the artworks.
mask
dead dad
3. materials and procedure
ron mueck uses a variety of materials for his work, mainly resin, silicon and fiberglass. for this particular work pregnant woman, mueck used fiberglass/resin (i forgot which) to create the body. however the face is created using silicon. by using silicon, mueck can easily achieve an extremely realistic face whereby he is able to put/punch each individual strand of hair, eyelash, eyebrow into the sculpture's face.
i have never actually work with resin/fiberglass/silicon but i would like to try working with them
i couldn't upload part I :/ but here's part 2.
the way he works with his mediums, from the draft to a scaled down version with realistic and precise features made of clay, to the blown up sculpture made of a mixture of materials. to me, hyper realism is a style only suitable for perfectionists who are willing to spend so much time and effort on a single piece of work. it is also because of the perfectionist nature in the artist that the sculptures are able to appear so real. i think an impressionists artist or futurist artist/sculptor will probably never achieve such perfection and detail. i like the effect of the first clay sculpture he made. this sculpture serves as a basic model which gives him an impression of how the sculpture would look like. there is little to no detail, only rough outlines and silhouette. the clay model is rough and uneven (i like the texture). the clay he uses is different from what i had in mind. i guess this is due to the lack of experience?furthermore, the materials i've been exposed to are not a lot. my idea of clay is like those pottery clay haha. i'm not sure whether its the same clay but it looks kinda different in the video.
anyways, this is only the basic model. after deciding on the pose, he works on a larger and detailed sculpture. by using a wire armature to support the sculpture, he added clay around to shape the sculpture into the form of a pregnant woman. with his tools and hands, he carefully shapes the facial expression, fingernails and other details into the sculpture. after this is done, he will have a extremely detailed mini sculpture. he then creates the final sculpture. (my goodness so many steps zzz) so for the giant sculpture, first, mueck uses wires to build the basic structure of the sculpture, he then uses bandages (gauze) soaked in plaster of paris and wraps it around the wire armature. after the bandage has dried, mueck then slaps on clay to create the mould. slowly shaping it, smoothing it, adding clay, subtraction clay, the forms of the pregnant woman slowly appears. after he is done with the mould, he goes on to coat the mould in silicon (if i'm not wrong, or at least grease it to prevent the initial sculpture from sticking to the mould. not sure about this) he also uses wooden pegs to mark the specific spots so when he puts the mould together, he would know exactly which crack fits which crack. it is this kind of planning and detailing that allows him to create such realistic sculptures. sometimes, the clay sticks to the mould and it's hard to remove cause there are tiny crevices and lines. in this case, mueck has to cut/chip/saw/break the clay in order to take out the mould. he then reattaches it using the help of a wooden scaffolding.
it is a really complicated and tedious process.
so he fills it the mould up with liquid resin/ fiberglass (not sure how its done, I'm guessing its poured into the mould when is in liquid form). he look the face out and made one more using silicon. he then slowly and tediously sticks each strand of hair into the silicon since silicon is soft. (i will go crazy at this point) with this, he has full control over how the facial hair/hair will look like, enabling him to fully recreate an extremely real sculpture
for the sculpture dead dad, this is the only sculpture in which mueck uses his hair for the whole sculpture. i guess its like respect for your late father, using his hair to represent his father's hair, its a little like transferring his soul (which is made from his mum and dad, aiya you get the meaning) into the sculpture.
pregnant woman 2002
mueck's work prompts us to question the ideal real in contemporary art.
what is real? his works are looks absolutely real. yet it looks fake because its sooo real to the point that its too real to look real. okay this sounds confusing. the blemishes which he proudly shows are something that even normal people try to cover up (be it with makeup or clothes). cause of all these cover ups, we don't even see these blemishes in real life. seeing all of these on the sculpture kinda makes it seem unreal. the size of his sculptures are also not real. but he captures emotions so well such that there seems to be some sort of soul in the artwork.
so what is the ideal real?
