Ron Mueck - The Big Man in Australia: Can You See Me Now?!

Ron Mueck is a favorite artist and I've talked about him before. His work of is now on exhibit in Australia. A remarkable artist, it's certainly worth an effort to see the work in person. Information regarding his current tour is at the end of this post.

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Australian-born Ron Mueck has been called a virtuoso of hyper-realistic sculpture. His parents were toy makers. Early on, Mueck worked in advertising, was a model maker and puppeteer for children's television.

Using materials such as fiberglass and silicone, he is able to make astonishingly realistic human forms, down to minute details, that are always larger or smaller than human scale. His use of scale is often a substantial part of the overall impact of the piece. It may be vastly out of scale or just slightly larger than life-sized. A Washington Post photo essay allows us to check out some of his pieces.

The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC had an exhibition, Strange Bodies, which included a piece by Mueck. You may still scroll through the museum's very interesting podcasts to the Strange Bodies walkthrough and preview.

Update 2010:

A lecture titled Missing Persons will be given on Thursday, Feb.11, 2010 at  The National Gallery of Victoria where there is a Ron Mueck show now.

"Focusing on sculpture's fabled power to give shape to absent bodies, Justin Paton explores the place of the figure in the work of two renowned sculptors, Ricky Swallow and Ron Mueck, and looks at the role of shyness, slowness and sentiment in their art."

The touring Mueck show is at the National Gallery through April 18th and moves on from there.

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