FE;=..,.

E
:::
Er

.:

'j= 'l
--.=--

r
Ron Mueck at the National Gallery
Ron Mueck's lngel rnade in rgg7, is a small rraked figure with an impressive
pair of feathered wings. Seated on a stool, he strikes a thoughtful and slightly

il"aq; melancholy pose. The scale of the figure is less incongruous than other Mueck
*'na sculptures, as it is perhaps easier to accept the apparent miniaturisation of a
Iigure purportingto come from another rl'orld. As with Mueck's other pieces,
however, there is still the compulsion to examine the figure's surface as closely
as possible, to scrutinise every detail. The rvings are made of goose feathers and
are utterly convincing: if angels do exist, it might not be a surprise to find they
louk like

this.

lzgel
tr'enus

?t"o,o" ,

'TnLn;-L
' 7t*,.lus

has ar unexpected solrrce: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's .4ltegory u,ith

/-f

and Timz fuorrl the National Gallerv (overleaf). Tiepolo's representation

of Time inspired Mueck to make his own *'inged character Othersubjects

Mueck addressed in the late rggos include self portraiture, birth and ageing, all
timeless and traditional themes. 'fhese links between Mueck's work and the art
of the past prompted the National Gallery to approach hirrr to become its fifth
Associate Artist.
There was another significant reason for the invitation, narnely the high
starrdards of craftsmanship that i\Iueck demands of himself. Craftsmanship
and skill dominate the history of Western at right up until the Modernist
revolution that started in the last part of the nineteenth century Since then, the
acquisition and use of marrual skills has been downgraded in terms of artistic
status, while at the same time the idea, or concept, has advanced. From the
deliberate crudities of Cubist collage onr,vards, there have been few significant.
movements in the twentieth century that have required a high level of
technical skill. The great exccpLions were the remarkable German artists oI
the NeLre Sachlichkeit such as Otto Dix, Georg Grosz or Christian Schad,
who emerged in the rgzos and rvhose intense and hyper real paintings owed
a decp debt to their German predcccssor, Albrecht Diirer Mueck similarly

o?LL

I
has German roots. His

mother arrd
father were both German, and
emigrated to Australia before Mueck
was born. The language of his
childhood home was German.
Comparison of Mue ck's Dead Dad.
(page 45) with The Painter's Father
(page 5g), attributed to Diirer, is
instructive. The surface detail in both
works is focused upon minutiae, the

textures of ageing. Both share an exact

and obsessive observation, as the stubble
pushes its way through the skin.

Mueck's experience in the special

effects industry has given hirn a highly
accomplished range of skills. Only
rarely will he employ professional
technicians to help produce his

iil*,.. ;XlitflJ,i.tilr'I;f
^
Pirc^rL trJ"i thataretoop vate and personal to entrust to anorher pair of hands.
p.*a h al:, Occasionally Mueck will use an assisrant for those jobJwhere there are no
.'- ,,*r4creatrve chorces to be made_ A n assistant might, for
example, be ent xted with
Q;n,,to

rerucrance to emproy assistants perhap.

ffi::

repetirive rasks such as making the inrlividual hairs

or producingthe textures
for goose-flesh, but onry \rueck can rnake decisions
about how the work will
look. Occasionally shoull he make a second version
of a piece, he will allow arr
assisrant to help him with the casting and to
complete some of the more tedious
processes, such as filling a mould with layers of
silicone. Even then, he will
insrst on closely super\ islngc\erv stagp.
The reasons are clear For Nlueck, the making of the
piece is a crucial part

Ciorann, Barnra f ie!.lo (,6otj-r?,o)

uith tlenu an.l TinE.

,4n .1U2Eo.!

'l he Naiionat Gall.rx

t-ndor

ilaleil

of its meaning. Hc seenis ro fiel a psycholodcal bond wirh the pieces he makes,
to forgc arr intimate rclarionship that excludes any third party. The artist,s
reluctance. rcfusal cr.cn. to discuss these issues which he considers of no
to
anyone
concern
else is itself of interest.
Mueck's process is r.elativeiy conventional. Initial ideas are tested with
small plastermaqucttes. and the final piece begins with a sculpture made of
clay For the smaller \\'orks, this is supported with a wire armature of exactly
the sarne type that l)egas, for example, used for his rvax sculptures. For the
bigger picces, the clay sculpttrre is supported by a large assemblage of
scaffolding that is co.r.ered lvith chicken wire and tllen rvrapped in layers of
scrirn soaked in wet plaster l\:hen the clay sculpt is complete, he takes a mould
from it and then casts it out in silicone or fibreglass, to which he has already
added colour. Aside frorn his choice of material for the final piece, this method
is exactly the same as that of Donatello, Rodin orthe
or the ancient Greeks
casting in bronze-

I tdo+qe- ba,
wher ''l,ffi1t
when
ti,r*"rt
l" &
&l
'

AcrAX.U,

Although this sounds simple there

are always risks. Mueck's work is
dependent on absolute perfection lor its
effect. The slightest trace of a seam
or any other technical blelrrish would

ruin the illusion and the piece would

lose its power Mueck's sculptures have
been compared to lr.axworks, but close
exarnination of a waxwork will always

reveal the piece for what it is: the surface

always appears dead. Mueck's,works
draw spectators towards them, enticirrg
viewers to examine as closely as possible
every pore and alatomical detail with a
kind of gruesome fascirration, as if they
Lorenzo Cosra (about ,459/60 ,5jrl
vtrh Gianfran.eso Maineri (n.rirr r+3q rio6)
1

h. Ynkin a%l Chitd Edh.an"d

(t,a Pdb Stroz.i),

rnoltab\!

oil nd rempra
'l'Ie National

on

wtul

\$o

Gallery, London

&elrr.tzat
y.":
"

'

,fru

are trying to catch the artist out- But they never do

and the uncanny lifelike

quality of Mueck's sculptures leaves the possibility, lurking in the back of one's
mind, that some other, sinister, process has been employed in their creation.
Mueck moved into his National Ga1lery studio in August rg99. The brief
for the Associate Artist is to make work in response to the National Gallery's
collection-Aware of thc danger of pastiche, Mueck was reluctant to force links
or to make literal fanscriptions of National Gallery paintings. At the beginning
of his tenure he carried on working as if he had not moved into the National
Gallery at all, expressing the hope that the collection would influence him
subliminally. During his first monrhs in rhe studio he produced much of the
work for his second solo show at the Anthony d'Offay Gallery, held in zooo.
Mast in Raincoat, Big Man, Mash I and the little wall-mounted -BaDjr (see cover)
weie all made in the National Gallery As he approached the end of his period
of appointnent Mueck expressed disappointment that more explicit links had
not developed. However, despite the artist's reseryations, the themes that he has
dealt with do connect powerfully with the Gallery's collection. Indeed, he cites
the wall-rnounted babies as the first pieces that he made consciously influenced
by his time in the National Gallery. He was particularly struck by arr earlv
sixteenth century altarpiece by Lore.zo Costa and Gianfra n .".oMluin"iiid&M2'
which the Christ Child seems to stand almost completely unsupported by his
molher, as confident, independent and arvare as arry adult. Something of
Ithe same spirit inhabits Mueck's babies. They seen so tiny and fiail, yet rhey
Boiri" convince us that they can feel and think for themselves.
,

Mother and Child

The lirst piece Mueck made specilically for his exhibition at the National
Gallery was Mother and C hild., which can be seen as a logical complement to
Dead. Dad (page 45)- The mother is similar in scale to the earlier work but

'"o1,m-.

u,i^L
LL"u.

is alive, playing her role at the start of life, rather tJral its end. It is Mueck,s
only piece to date to show more than a single figure, nld there_by implies a

relationship, albeit one rhat has hardly had rirne ro form. Mueck has made
prer.ious sculptures of babies on a larger than life scale, so his return to the
subject is not a complete surprise, whereas his frank and unprece<lenred
approach to a traditiorral subject certainly is.

The National Gallery has many paintings thar show the mother and child
theme, most prolifically, of coruse, in rhe guise of the Virgin Mary with the
infant Christ, Nlueck has looked carefully at many of these. A favourite is the

l/irgin and C hild. in an Inteior from t)te

workslrop of Rohen Campin. Thp tiny sizp
ot Lhc pain ling dnd the crrrious way in
which tire relarionship between rhe morher
a nd ch ild rs deprctcd proved ro he of great
interest to N{ueck. In common with naly
Renaissance and later representations

of

the Vrrgin and Child lhc inlant Christ is

shorvn as a highly unrealistic babv l\.Iueck
was intrigued at how'urr babylike,the

lniant Christ often seems

Be{ore the invention of phorography
there were obvious reasons why artists did
not have easy access to a newborn child,
or even images of one. Consequently they
often took their visual cues from other
,

Wur[sh-p ot Rubtn Lant,n

Ih? t t.En uLl chnd rn 4n tnt 40, abour a.5

'Ihe Naiioral (;all.ri

tjnd.n

artworks rather than froln life- Fur'thermore, artists were always under pressure
to conform to time honoured arrd salctified patterns, conscious tbat they were
not simply replesenting an ordinary baby.

When Mary and the newborn Christ Child are depicted, the t\Mo characrers
are usually shown as having already formcd a bond: either rhc conventional
mother-and-child relationship of mutual affection and care, or a demonstration
of religious devotion. Mueck's sculpture shows the mother-child bond being
formed in front of our eye-s: the child arrir.ed just seconds ago. It glistens

with mucus, the umbilical cord is still attached, the rnorher's stomach has not
yet begun to contract- The mother remains in the birthing pose, with legs
splayed and knees up. Her body is still tense after the pains of her labour. She
seems unsure about what to do with herhalds and ]ooks down at the child
with an expression verging on the blanktess of shock- 'I'his chilil is hers, of
her flesh, butthe love that she knows she should feel has not yet had time to
ma-nifest itsel f-

Although this sculpnre adds to a long tradition, Mueck has chosen a

moment that, significantly, has always been avoided in Christian art. By treating
an instant of utmost privacy - before any emotional tie has been formed and displaying it for our scrutiny, the artist seems to be inviting us ro pry. Some
will feel uneasy aboui having such unrestricted access to this wolnan's body

as

they succumb to the temptatioD of focusingmore and more upon those parts

of her that we are used lo understandirrg as private. Ilowever, the scale, at

approximately half life size, effectively keeps us at a safe psychological distance
fronr the couple. lrye can look at her safe in the knowledge that shr-- will not
return our gaze, that she cannot see us. The rniniaturisation gives thc sculptun'
ar intense ard precise hpcr reality, it is akin to studying somethiug through
the wrong end of a telescope. Tbe scale reminds us that she is, after all and
despite appearances, only a sculptureThe mother is not a portrait of any specific person but an inlaginary type.
Nlueck did, on occasion, work with a model while rnaking the piece but only
because he felt the need for direct observation of details such as harrls and feet.
His other principle sources were photographic, particularly medical textbooks.
'l he babv squints through almost closcd eyclids, open just enough for it to v iew
for thc first time the person responsible for its entry into the world. Curiously,
the baby has a distinct persr:'nality and see!:!ls to llave emerged of ils owr
volition, crawling instinctively and urraided to its presenr position. The impli
cation is that this birth was unattended by any outside parties: doctor. midwife
or partncr The child already has a free will, an independence that casts the act
of leaving its mother's womb as the first stage of a journey that will inevitably
end with the child leaving its mother as adulthood is attained.

Mueck never disputes that his work has autobiographical content- He was
present ar the birh of his two daughters, and it seems inevirable that
he drew
upon these experiencesr profound yet commonplace, when making this
piece.
Technically and tvpically for Muech, ir i s a tour deiforce _ The mother and
child
were cast separarcly, both in libreglass. Fibreglass is hard and has *re
physical
advantage over silicone that any seams still visible after the casting plocess
can
be filed away. However, its rigidiry does not allow the insertion
of indivirlual

hairs, which must be glued on to the surface. As l\,Iueck,s sculptures

invite such
close inspection t-his gave hirn a problem, because glued-on
eyebrows alcl
eyelashes can never look completely authentic. .l.his was not an issue
with the
pubic harx which could be glur-d on salcll becauscrLesrickr messol rhe
alterbirth acts as canouflage, but it was a challenge for the mother,s head.
To resolve this difficulty, Nlueck cast our another lace from
rhe original

mould, this time using silicone. Silicone,s rubber like qualiry enabled rhe
artist
to punch the individual hairs in, one by one, mahing them
look as iI they are
acrually grolving through the skin. Nlueck then removerl the original
fibreglass
face and replaced

it rvith the new silicone

one- IIe was careful to cut along a

crease in the mother's neck and consequently affixed the new face
invisibly.
For Mueck, technical problerns like these become creative

problems. The
decision to embark upon a particular sculprure, and then the actual
makinp,of

it, are not two processes: the concept and the rnaking are inseparable. Each new
sculpture presents the atist with another set of problems, often unforeseen.
By solving these problems successfully, the artist cements his emotional bond
with the sculpture-

Man in a Boat
'llrc Man in a Boat

man, iust over half life-size, seated l'acing

lbrrvard in a rolving boat. It is the only piece in tlte exhibition thai does not
consists

of

a naked

deal explicitly with the rheme of birth and motherhood. However, seen in the

context of the other pieces Nlueck has made for the show rt happrh' takes

place

metaphorical representation of bifih. The Virgin Ma:y has long been

described as the vessel through which Christ came to the world antl the ship, or
naois institttis,is arraditional s1rmbol of the Immaculate Concepiion, Mueck
as a

was unaware of this when he started r rork on tl:e piece, and expressed both

I
I

delight and amusementTvhen he learned that orre of his favourite National

Gallery painrings, 7/r Immaculate Conceprroz by Diego Vel6zquez, which is
unarlbiguously about birth, includes a tinv representation of a ship, set among
an array of other syrnbols, at the bottom of the picture.
NIueck did not consciously choose the subiect as a binh metaphor: he er-en

doubts that the theme of his National Gallery exhibition should be construed as
'birth', preferring instead t-he idea of containment- The irrfant in the womb, tle
Su,ad.dled Baby ard, the ltran in the boat all share a physical

limitation on their

movernent that both reshicts aIld protects.

Mueck bought the boat, which was lying derelict, from a group of Sea
Cadets. He.was initially motivated by the necessity of producing a long and
narrow sculpture to fill a particular space for a proposed exhibition in Ne.w York.
'l44ri1e trawling through old skerches looking for ideas, Mueck chanced upon an
drawing of a man in a boat and so the idea was born. As it turned out, the
piece was not linished in time for rhe New York show.
The figure is made from silicone, a choice of material dictated by Mueck's
desire to give him boily hair Accordingly, the artist's principal technieal
difficulty was to cast the sculpture with no visible searas because with silicone,
unlike fibreglass, these cannot be filed away. Mueck rnade the rnould so as to
o1d

minimise the exposeil seams, but

even then he could not avoid having
one join where the sides of the
rloulal come together and where,
had the casting not been successful, a
seam would have been very eviderrt,
ruining the piece. An initial casting
was a failure, anil Mueck was forced
to mahe another Inould from the
original clay. Further trial castings
proved problematiq but the final
piece came out of the rnould with no
seam evident- Mueck claims that this
was more by luck than iudgement
because the pieces of the mould
always expand in unpredictable
Djeo velau quez G599-,66o)

Thelmruulat

Cou.prion,

^bont

The Narional Galery. London

r6'a

places while drying, and the abutting edges are almost impossible to keep

in

Precise register.

Removing the finished piece from the mould is not an easy process, as
silicone is easily stretched out of position or torn, which rvould render several
weeks' work wasted, ald it was a mornent of high tension when the successful
cast was extracted. Jruithout

wishing to stretch a point, it is not unlike

witnessing a birth- Liquid soap is used to lubricate the lirnbs, which are half
e-ncouraged and half forced to slither out, accompanied by alarming squelching
and popping sounds. In its linished and displaved srate the ligure is supported
on a metal armature because silicone will not support itseli Consequently,
when the figure emerged, he was dripping with the green slime of rhe soap arrd
flopping aboutlike a fish on dry land. The rime, effort and emol.ion invested in
making the piece heightened the final momenr of triumpb for the artistThe scale of the figure, relative ro the viewer alld to the boat irself, puts one
in mind of Gulliver, and it is aiso hard not to think of Pinocchio - anorher
allegorical traveller- and of rhe strange paternal relationship between the
craftsman and his finished product. Mueck laughs at and derides such ideas,
perhaps

righ

IIe

does not deny

though, the element of self-portraiture

present in this work- The initial clay sculpture was made using his own body as
a reference. He examined closely his halds and his feet and incorporated them
y-

into his work. He looked at the texture of his own skin and tried to lind ways
of maLing an accurate impression of it. In the past he has used his own face to
work from, rrost notably in the over life-size self-portrait Maslt. Ihile rhe

Man in a Boatlooks nothing like t}re artist, it can still be undersrood as havirre
aspects of self-portraiture.
By placing tlre figure in a vessel, the sculpture immediately qains a
narrative aspect, Mueck's earlier single ligure sculptures are in static poses,
either passive or quiet\ introspective. This figure ho*'ever, has his neck slightly
stretched and his quizzical expression irrdicates a curiosity about what lies
ahead. The movement is subtle but it is there, none the less, and gives the ligure
an out.lvard-looking aspect unseen in i\{ueck's previorrs rvork, N'Iueck suggests
rhat this might be because, rvhile rvorking in the National Gallery he was rn
daily contact with a range of different people who would visir his studio irnd
discuss the work in progress, Tvhereas his usual practice is to work in isolation.
The understated naLsre of Man in a Boaa's animation orves somerhing to the
failure of a previous piece. a srnall sculpture of an old woman u.ith r.vide opet

smile. Despite being executed to Mueck's customary high

standards, he reiected this figure. Although it functioned perfectly as a
technical exercise, Mueck felt that it communicated no sense of the mystery or
psvchologv that is so important in his work- The artist r:oncluded that his
eyes and a broad

mistake was an atternpt to make a sculpture that freezes arl active pose, rather
than one that implies the potential for activity- Consequently, the neck
rnovenrent of the Maz is so slighr as to be almost unnoticeable.
I'art of making re piece involved deciding exactly wltere in the boat rhe

ligure should sit and which rvay he should lace- Each new position openeri up
different possibilities: is he trarclling towards sornewhere, or leaving something
behind? Is he in control of his own desliny or at the u,him of chanc.e? l)oes he
wony about his late or is he indifferent to it? The boat has no means of
propulsion, so the implication is that he is has no control over either his destirry
or destination. However, placing hirn boldly at the front srrggests he is travelling
loruardsandisrurious.whrch.LdC..tctlrerrrrplir:rricn:cIIhcsl:ght1..rra:r:ng
rreck, Nllueck originally intended that the ,|1aa should face backwards and be
seated in the centre of the boat, but rvhen he r.ras placed in the centre, the vessel
seemed to lose its sense of impetus, appeaing becalmed or drifting slo*.ly.
'l his position did nrake rhe formal links w tth the Mothzr and Chikl rnore
apparent, howe\.er- Both works represent small ligures perclted on top of mr.rch

larger recumbent forms that can be understood

as

taking theln on an

unpredirtable iourney.
Another earlier idea was to place a tar?aulin behind the figure, covering
an ar.angement of unseen packages. Viewers would know then that he bad
raken something with him from his past life that might be of use in the
future, This idea was only reiected at a relatively late stage, and Mueck decided
to allow the llgure in the boat to have nothing. Despite the vulnerability of
his nakedness the little rnan seems safe enough, for now at leasl The boal
provides a protective cocoon around him. But all journeys must come to an
end and the Maa will one day be no longer protected, forced to face the
world to which the boat delivers him. Once again, the metaphor of birtl
s,rooests itself.

PregnanlY,'ornan
Nlueck inrends his Pregz ant Woman robe approached from behind. Only by
investigating the work further, by walking around it, should the viewer he able
to discover the woman's pregnanc.y. From behind, she is simplv an over_sized
woman with stocky proportions, holding her arms above her head. Despite

being made from unyielding fibreglass, she looks fleshy and sofr' The pose,

with her arms abovc her head, makes her appear to be resting, contemplative,
caughi in a private mornent. As \Mith all of Mueck's pieces re surface detail is
noticeable even from a distance, but the temptation to colne in close is
irresistible. Veins, moles and areas of goose flesh become visible, all executed
with the artitst's customarlr uncorrpromising exactitude. The feet and hands
are especially.ir-rrPressive.
As we move around the sculpture, her massive protuberance is revealed.

This hugely swelling belly, with the shin stretched to breakingpoint, invades
the spectators' space and is of sufficient proportioil to indicate that t}le child
within is nearing the end of its term. Mueck makes us r,isualise the position of
the child's head and limbs, as it curls up in foetal

safety

before it bursts out

ro arlive in the world,

'N{ueck
started work on Prcgnant l,lloman in his usual way, by making a

of small plaster -Inaquettes around Iifteen centimetres tall. They all tal<c
up the same lour squar.e pose, \rith the arms of eaclr one in a diflerent ptsition.
'I'hese maquettes were an investigation into the range of poss:ibilities fot the
pose. At this stage, rto decision about the scale of r.he finished piece had been
ta-kcn. After these pieces he embarked upon a larger maquette, this rime of clay,
wirh which he finalised the position of the arms Nlueck dccirled to give her
closed eyes after he saw an exhausted looking pregnant woman in the National
Gallery caf6 restirrg with her eyes shut.
Thc final clay sculpture was made on an assemblage of scaffolding that
had been covered in chicken rvire ro indicate the ftrrrn of the lvoman. On top
of rhis he applied layers of scrim soaked in wct plaster and, once these had
dried, the clay -was briilt irp over the frarne. Wlen the clay sculpiiire r.as
linished, a mould was taken frorn it and tlre final piece cast in libreglass, Mueck
then cast a separate face in silicone and attached it in the sarne way as he harl
dore for Mother and Chtld.
riYhile making Pregz ant Woma4 Mteck made his most extensive use
of models in his career so far- Ile worked with one particular rvoman for ir
se-ries

six_months Pregnant'
period of nearly three months, starting when she was
in no sensc a portrait Mueck
Nevertheless, despite her crucial input, the piece is
in exactly the same
fbunrl himseif choosing rlifferent parts of different models
.(lras rePuted to have done' lle also
way t-hat the Classical Greek painter Zcuxis
in a mirror rvhcn he was
o"ed photographic ,ources aral eve looked at himself
having particular diflicuhy with theposition of the arms
is reluctant to statc
The firrished piece is two and a half metres tall N{ueck
ro make the rvoman
reasons lor his choice of scale, but once he had decided
how much bigger
larger'*ran life, there was srill the importalt issue of exactly
Tvoman l n
it should be. To resolve this, he made three large drawings of dre
'fhese were then atuched to a wooden
profile, each slight\ different in height
Gallery where the
scaffold arrd taken ty thc atist into the room in the Narional
in relation to the
sculpture woulil be shown, so that he could see i'hern
Pregnant Woman accordingly'
s.,.r_oorrdit g,pa"" and choose the size ol his
that the
Although X'lueck wanted to make alarge scrrlpture' he was anxious
To this end he needed to
finished piece should not impress by magnirude alone
relate to her as a lellow
keep her size human enough that viewers could still

creature not rnerely perceive her

as

an outsize freak'

What would rhe

Comparisons rvith Mo ther and Child are worth making
on a larger than life scale
effect have becn if Mueck hail made lhe earlier piece

m
]

.d
and llaade Pregnant Woma.n srnaller? Mother arul Child shows a woman

with
her baby at a rroment of absolute cxtremity and urter vulnerability- The
diminished scale poignant\ intensifies these ideas. A grearer size would
therefore mean sacrilicing thosc aspects of the work that rrrake it so convincing.
Conversely, altlrough Pregnant Woman's maquette (rvhich is low destroyed)
srill worked beautifulll., it did rrot havc the samc degree of emotive suggesLiol

Mothzr antl Child. The exaggerated siz e of Pregnant WomLzz forcefully

communicates the weight borrre in the woman's wolnb.'!ve are forced to
wonder at the physicality and burden of chikl bearing, and the sculpture
as

becomes a tribute to motherhood.

Iinlarging the ligure adds another porverful aspect. As she loonN above us
she gains a totemic quality, and beco res a great Earrh Mother at whose feet
we stand. IICI enlarged scale psychologically diminishcs specrarors, giving us
the relative scale of a child. We are made to feel subordinate beforc the
povrerful form before us: motheihoiid persc,nified, the origil oi iiie. iriueck has
made an Eartlr Goddess for the twenty-Iirst century who takes her place rv:ith
representations of allcient fertility godesses, or the prehistoric female stones of
Avebury or the Boyne Valley. And yer shc is still profoundly hurrran. Her bodv
has the imperfections of reality. The closed eyes allow us to fecl urrobsen.ed as
we look at her They also encouragc us to imagine trer thoughts and her

'\/

feelings. She looks exhausted, careworn and individual, weighed down both

literally and metaphorically.

There is no specific National Gallery source- As with MotDer and Child, she
stands in relation to a tradition rather than to a particular painting. She
oiginates from Mueck's desire to carry on his investigations into the mother
and-child theme. Historically, there are representations of the obviously
pregrart Virgin Mary tut these are rare and the National Gallery owns none.
However, Mueck's sculpture does act as a reminder of how often in litanies to
thc Virgin Mary, she is referred to as a holy vessel or container. Spectators would
surely be iustified in seeing X{ueck's sculpture as a modern Mary pondering
deepiy the im pl icat rons oI rT hat she carries w ith in hcr.

56

i
i

,q

'lhe Swaddted Babv

tiny baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed on a white pillow,
completes the t'ork made in the National Gallery, This new piece is a further
exploration o{ a subject Mueck has addressed before, with his big Babies of
rgg8, aod his time at the National Gallery has encouraged him to focus even
furrher on Ihe rheme
YYlrile still N.orking o\the Pregnant Woman, Mueck saw images of
swaddled babies from the Far East that triggered his inrerest and helped hirn
decrde to make a sculpture of rhe subiect. Swaddling a newborn child is now
A

unusual in the lYest but remains cornr:con Fra.ti.a rn Ce! !tr.r ! and Eastern
Europe, and even more so in the Far East. A child is swaddlcd for the first few
weehs of its life ro constrict its limbs while it becornes used to its new

environment outside the conlainmcnt of the rvomb- The swaddling clothes are
intended to replicate the sense of restriction suddenly and violently lost at birth,
A chance sighting in London's Charing Cross Road of a Romanian beggar

'T

sitting with a swaddled baby was important ro the rnaking of Mueck,s piece.
At first he did not realise that the tiny package the wornan held was a child. He
watched her as she moved it from hand to hand; in the artist,s own words ,like
a loaf of bread'. The infant could not have been more thal three weeks
old.
Tightly w'rapped, with only its face showing, it looked impossibly miniature, as
if it was altering irs own scale in a parody of Mueck,s characteristic shrinkages.
Mueck was accordingly inspired to make his Sua&tted Babylife size, rhe firsr
piece he has made without altering the scale. paradoxicalll4 however, the baby,s
tiny size mahes it look as if it has indeed been miniaturised.
14tren considering M leck's Stoa.tltlled. BaDn it is inevitable that the infant
Christ, the most famous swaddled baby in histol6 will come to mind, in much
the same way as Mu eck's Mother and ChrTd draws inescapable comparison with
traditional images of the Virgin and Child. In the National Gallery,s collection
rhere is a painting of the,4doration of the Shepluerds by an anonl.rnous
Neapolitan arrist in which the Christ
Child is tightly swaddled.'l-his picture
reinforces Mueck's apt, but
unconscions, brearl simile, since the

basketof loqves on rhe righr. of

the picture is a symbol to remind the
faithfu] thar at the Eucha srthe
communion bread becomes the body
of Christ.
Mueck began making thc
&oaddled Batryr immediately afrcr
completing the Pregz ant Woman. Hc
originally planned to male four babies,
which were to be displayed together
hanging in a row on rhe wall. Afrer
completing all four, this idea was
Nt{liian atisq

prcha61y r6Jos

The.r dDruh@ of .ne

Tl,c Narional
1a

Shz phzrdt

6all..: Lndon

dropped. The decision to show iust one carrre after Mueck had also considered
and rejected showing two or three together. If he showetl more lhal one, he

felt, rhe piece would simply become an exercise irr compadson for viewers, who
would surely be ternpted to merely try and spot slight differences between each

lace

certainly not what the arrist intcnded. The others have not been
abandoned, but put aside for later consideration as works in their own right.
As there was rro reason to produce realistic bodies for these babies, only the
heads were moulded in clay and cast oui in silicone. The body that Mueck
rnakcs us imagine, snug inside the swaddling, is simply polyurethane foam

little wisp of hair that

shows from nnderneath the cotton headpie<* of the Suafulled Baly successfully
emphasises the frailty of that body we do not see, concealed and constricted

lilling that

has been wrapped and bound. However, the

beneath the swaddlirrg The material for the swaddling was chosen after Mueck
had experirnented with a variety of coloured fabrics and tlpes of binding

Mueck has consistently ernplrasiser! ..har the fou!: ne\v pieces he has rlad.:
Ior this exhibition should not solely be interpreted in terrns o{ birth ard
motherhood. Of the works he has produceil at the National Gallery, this last
piece perhaps makes his point most powerfully, tharhe sees the four pieces as

being about containrnent. The baby froln or in the ]volnb, the man in the hoat
and the bound-up infant all share some sense of restriction. The white cotton

,9

around the head of tlte Su.'ad.dled Baby, combined with the dull brown of t-he
body wrapping, gives the sculpture a monk lilie appearance which iS reinforced
by the string that ties up the whole package. This hint of a monk,s solitar y,
conrcurplative life, shut away in the confinement of a rnonastery, adds alother
aspect to this

It

little figure,

return to the element of self portraiture in Mueck,s work in

the contexr of this piece. Mueck's sudden high profile in tJre art world was
unlooked for, and has taken hirn by surprise. He was unprepared for the amount
of inedia coverage, parttcularly the myriad requests for inierviews following his
inclusion in the Sezsarzoz exhibition. He worrld much prefer ro be left alone to
work in privacy without having rc make himself and his private rhoughts
ptfi\ic. The Sua&lkd. Bablr is fast asleep arrd inhabits a world that exists only in
its own head. It seems as safe and as cosy as it did in the womb, althougtr in
reality its bith has given ir a fragility arrd a r.,ulnerability of which it is, as yer,
blissfuiiy unaware. It was, perhaps, predictable that Mueck should decide
finally upon one solitary baby, given the dominance of single figures in his
career so far, and r.he solitary way in which he works. If the Man in a Boat can
be understood as a metaphorical self-portrait, so, too, can the Su.,at)t etl Baby.
It is tempting to think of the four National Gallery pieces as having some
kind of narrative logic that unites them and enables us to see them as a
is possible ro

whole. Starting with Pregnant lTomdn, we inevitably move to Mother arul

Cilld, then on to th e Suadiled. Baby and hnally r.o the Maz in a Boat, ever
though the four pieces were not made in thai order- The sculptures function
both as individual works, and in relation to one another.
They can also be seen in the context of tbe other work made in llueck,s

l\ational Gallery studio, before he embarked deliberately on the pieces for this
exhibition. Inirially, he worked as if he was not in the Gallery realising only
latcr Lhat the wall mourrr-ed Ba6yowed rLs origin ro r-he fa.r rhat he \4as
surrounded by Old Nlasrer paintings, working amorrg so maoy odd lookilg
babies. Mueck's conscious involvemenr with the Gallery,s collection after his

invitation began wi th Mother and Chikl, made over a year after he moved in.
The pieces produced during the first year in the National Gallery however, hint
at those same themes that was to explore specifically for this exhibition.
The
()ld Wornan in Bed., contained within her bedclothes, is
arriving at the end of
the jorrrney srarred by the newborn infant of Mother and. Child.,and is wrapped
rrp in a rvay that pre sages rhe &Laddle(t Baby.-Ihe Big Ma4 gruffly
enclosed
within himself, and tbe Man in lllanhets, curled up in his foetal posture, all
happily fit wir.hin the theme of containr[enr rhat so interests N{ueck_
Colin Y\tggins

Ron Mueck: A Redefinition of Realism

Visitors to the Hayward Gallery's Spellbozrl exhibition in 1996 were surpised
to lind the small figwe of a young boy, naked but for a pair of white Y-fronts
and a mischievous expression, stalding in a room full of Paula Rego's giant
canvases. Notling in the gallery explained his presence, but the curious could

find the story among the press clippings pinned up outside. Rego had asked
her son in law, model rnaher Ron Mueck, to sit for her painting o{ Gepetto as
he made his own Pinocchio. Mueck created not a puppet but a very real boy,
who slipped unannounced into the art world under Rego's skirts. 'fhe fairytale
parallel is beguiling Gepetto, the master-c.raftsmar, put aside his everyday
work to pour all his skill into a ligure rnade to fill a gap in his life. Mueck had
'enjoyed'a successful career making models for film, television and advenisi ng
but, feeling increasingly unfulfilled and frustrated by working to order, he had
begun making work for his own private satisfaction. Mueck's Pirurchio was also
to change its maker's life after a {ashion, turning hirn into a creator of

'living'

sculpture. Enter the farniliar character of Charles Saatchi, fairy godfather to

the YBAs: intrigued by Pinocchio,he sought Mueck out, eventually acqniring
his giant Babies,,4zge I and Dead Datl-'fhis last became lVlueck's firsr officially
exhibited rl.ork, in Sezsaaioz at the Royal Academy (rg97), where it stole the
shorv and catapulted Mueck into the first rank of the contemporary art world.

Now this exhibition is a chance to look back at the artisls work to date, anil
an opportunity to consider

it

albeit glancingly

in the light of orher eflorts

through history to render the lifelike human figure.

Mueck has created the most flawlessly hyper real figures in art history so
effectively imitating nature that the categories of art, image and reality seem to
be suspended. In the prese-nce of a Mueck sculpture we are astonished by the
perfection of rhe illusion, leaning in, it is impossible to fault, however close your
range. Hairs sprout from pores, eyes glisten with moisture, flesh appears flushed

ormottled. New developments in the history of alt are often represented

as

technological advances driven by rhe pursuit of increasetl naturalism. Yet

this impulse has beer constantly checked by a deeply ingrainerl aversion to the
too-lifelike, an uneasiness still present in our respouse io Mueck's work todav
Historically, sculpture has been prized and denigrated for the same qualities
its directness, its power to rnove and to inspire empathy. The history of
sculptuxe in Western civilisation, then, is also the history of a debate o.re: the
very definitions and parameters of the terms 'naturalism' and 'realism'. The
pursuit of these qualities has produced the idealised bodies of the high Classical
period, when physical beauty was invested with moral or divine qualitjes, as
well as ihe agonised, suffering body that Medieval sculpture made an arena for

Christian doctrine. 'Realism'can be a truth to essential, un:iversal nature or to

a detailed observation of particular reality; an encapsulation of beauty or a
repudiation of it, Mueck's hyper-realism is not'simply' the flawless technicel
imitation of reality, but requires another definition,

Verisirnilitude: technique and taboo

Confronting a work by Ron Mueck is an uncanny experience (and locking up
a dark gallery full of them, alone, a dorvnright eerie one). It is not that u.e
actually think rhat they are alive, however, aJrd there is not Lhe mornentary jolt
of confusion that a sidervays glimpse of a life size dumrny can deliver. Our
experience of Mueck's illusion of life is more rewarding and prolorrged because
we are willing participants in the deception, In fact, our arnazement is
predicated on our awareuess of deceit, arrd ourpleasure lies in finding it out.
We relish the contradictory rnessages oI eyes arrd brain, the questionirlg of aur
senses. The oyenvhelming desire to touch that all viewers scem to feel is an
urge to corroborate their eyes' impressiou of living warmth and softness.
We indulge the fancy that as we turn away a feathered wing rnight stir, a hekl
breath be released or arr eyelid flicker, and we feel a genuine shiver of the
uncanny. Despite our inteller:tual understanding of their rnan-made sLatus,

tension arises from the conflict betrveen the matcrial,s ineftia and its
impression of liveliness; the fear of the lifelike which haunts the waring
perceptions of the image

reflection, and the image as reality.

What lies behind the lifelike humar figure,s power ro fascinate and ro
unsettle us?Another fairyale in which a man combines hands,skill and heart,s
longingto infuse a work of art with life, the story of Pygmalion and Galatea, is
the founding mtth of Western sculpture ald paradigmatic act of creation.
When the legendary King of Clprus fell in love wittr rhe statue of a beauriful
as

woman he had made, Vcnus brought her to life. The story dcscribes the magical
process through which a three-dirnensional sculpted form can .become, a

living, breathing entity. Similar tales are found in other mythologies, and stories
of men's desire to create a living creaturc appear in manv grises; among thern
the Jewish rradition of the golem, Descarles' automatorr Francine and
Frankenstein's monster Each is an allegory of the rewards and risks inherent

in the creative act - and more particularly an expression of our awarcness that
by creating a human figure we parody the act of divine creation. The taboo rhar
prohibits representation frorn approaching life too closely is deeply ingrainetl_

Tie Sa{clri C-lt*!io,. t,oDJo.

Western traditions of aestherics and philosophy are founded on platonic theory

which deems exact representation both impossible and undesirable, and we
arr: corrditioned by centuies of polemic and prohibitions surrounding images
The Pygmalion myth acknowledges the power of human responses to art,
specilically to the three dimensional hurnan form. We well krrow that people
are aroused by sculptures, pray and make pilgrimages to them, smash anrl
topple them, are calrned or incited to revolt by them. The democracy and
directness of sculptrrre's appeal, the strange seduciive magnetism of itj
'rhingness', has been the cause of intellectual suspicion and distaste,
and has
resulted in the negative value sometimes placed on verisimilitude. Baudelaire
iderrrified a popular preference for sculpture,s ,unrefined imrrrediacy, in an
essay rvith rhe uncompromising title ,Why Sculpture is Tiresome,, and
his is
only one attack in a long hislorical debare thai has largely favoured painting
ovcr sculpture.l
A relared prejudice, agairr strctching back to anriquity, is rhe belief in
sight,s
supremacy over the other senses. Touch, the sense which Mueck,s rendering

of lvarm, heavy flesh or fine dowrry hair most arouses, has been deemed
urrreliable, dalgerous, even morally questionable. At the sarne time, the
oldest,
clich6d compliment that can be paid to a sculptor is to say tbar he can rnake
marble seem flesh and blood, or make sculptures breathe or move- Daedalus,
rnl,lhic progenitor of Greek art, was said to have made sculptures that rvalked

off their bases hlperbole talen

literally thar statues have been excavated

charned to their plinths at the ankle. Classical ter-ts are full of admiring
anecdotes of artists' ability ro deceive Zeuris'painted grapes that were
pecked
by Lhe birds, the calf which pined and stan,ed beside llyron s sculpted corv _
so

rvell as statues' porver to provoke emotion, aad even violence and lust (the
Knidian Aphrodire, the most irrrpossibly beauriful representation of woman,
as

was said to haa-e a stain on her flank left bv one particulaJlji ot-ern-helmed

art

lor.er), Similar formulae resurface in accounts of the master sculptors of the

Renaissance, and seern not much more lhan maanered cliche when they
appear

in epigrams saluting Antonio Canova's 'blushing marble'.' It is sculpture in

particular, of course, occupying our three dimensional space, which can fool us
into responding as if to the real,
Mueck's works rentler flesh, blood, hair, substance and terture with breath

taking accuracy. What else do we look for to test for signs of life? Movement is
perhaps the first signifier. Mueck's sculptures are still, bDt not frozen mid
gesture: in attitudes of rest, the_t retain the possibility of motion. We also ]ook
rc the

eyes which

is why it is so disturbing to see an image, or indeed a person,

without them- There is a Chinese tradition that the paintcr does not complete
the eyes of his subjects, in order to prevent thern escaping his control.r Mueck
lavishes extraordinalr care on hand-making his rnodels' eyes in many stages,
building up atransparent lens over a coloured iris and deep, black pupil.'l44ren
he linally inserts them the effect is startling, as the figure appears to corne to
life- A waxwork's vacant, glassy star:e quickly betrays lifelessness. Not only are
Mueck's eyes astonishingly rcal, but they may glint from half-closed lids, be
partly aoncealed, or cast reflectively downwards: our sense o{ a ]ife behind the
eyes persists.

Dead Dad's ayes are closed. His thick grey hair has been brushed back from

the lined face, now slackened into melincholy repose. 'l'his is the one sculpture
in which l\'lueck convinces us not of the presence, but of the absence of life.

Although we know better, we expeience the chilling sensation that we are

looking not at a representation but at the thing itsell a corpse. The body is real
to us in cvery fleshy detail, but somehow we know tltat life once present has now departed. Dead Dad encapsulates one of the crudal questions at the
heart of Mueck's work: what distinguishes animate and inanimate matter;
rvhat is the essence that animates, the spark rh al consiti tu tes life?As Craig
Raine has written 'Ron Mueck's sculpture explains why man has felt the need
ro inrenr the idea of the soul'-'

The Kritian Boy to Mueck's Boy

One ligure *ands at t-he origin of the history of naturalisnn in sculpture, a

distalt alcestor in whatever erratic lineage we mighl trace to Mueck. Dubbed

'cover boy of the Greek revolution', the Kritian Boy represents the end of a stiff
and stylised sculptural tradition and signals the movement towards an accurate
imitation of nature, one of Western art's most profound developments.'Two
key factors in this revolution were technological innovation - the invention of
techniques that u.ould allow greater detail - and the drive of narrative, the
desire to involve viewers through convincing emotion and drama in orderto
better tell a story, Here are the basic impulses which have held trre down to
Mueck: refining techniques to create a closer imitation of reality, ald so convey
"a convincing psychological presence. Hoyrever, the newly naturalistic figures
of the Classical period were athletes, heroes, gods. They represented an ideal,
achieved by blendirlg the human and divine, the universal and the spccific.
These Classical principles were later codified by the Renaissance inro

Kntur" 6r

Kiio,

Bo!,

AlIpoljs lrus.un. Ath.ns

tvlan unh

shatd ILa,t. toga

,::]

mathematical rules governing proportion and anatomy, perspective and

foreshortening composition and symmetry. f)ne of the most familiar images of
the Renaissance, konardo da Vinci's (r 452 t5rg) Vitnoian Ma4 perfectly
demonstrates their lasting influence on Western aesihetics.
Mueck's work seems so scrupulously faithful to reality in the detail rhat
one does not immediately notice the Iarger

libeties he takes with precisely

these principles of proportion and anatomy- Although he uses life models,

Boy, Big Man arr.d Man u.ttth Sha.ted Eead are ali rn poses Mueck's sitters found

impossible. Their bodies are folded into more cornpact forms than rve can
easily achieve, yet each one seenN relaxed, absolutely balanced and stable,

solidly rooted to thc ground. Out of thc knot of his body the Man uith Shtued
Head drapes long arms and huge. heavv hands. Lnur-kles u eigh rpd ro Ihe
ground in front of him. Nlentally unfolding him to starding height, t'e carr

Aarhu Klnsii, u5eurJ. Denma.k

imagine how disproportionate they would seem

to his frame (here is an echo of Michelangelo's
David, enormous hand resting gracefuIly against
his rttigh)- He has the latent energy and grace of
an athlete, seeming simultaneously coiled and at
rest, his furled boily balanced against the droop

of l'is arrns- Big Man 's dense, solid bulk is packed

into a corner, a fleshy rnanifestation of brooding
m is.ry. Perversely. t-hes" expressrve distortions
invest Mueck's figures with the living charge that
an actual life cast lacks: though it may be a
perfect anal exact reproduction of a ]iving body,
a cast will always seem a stiff, dead shell. Mueck
works from life, from found images and
analomical soruce books, but he does not apply
any methods of calculation- Ilis sculptures can
spend weeks and months as clay while he grops towards a sense of proportional
'rightness' for the figure that is not based on lidelity to a living model, but is
particular to the figure he is creating.
Nllueck's ligures are also lar from perfect or ideal: they ale awkward,
flawed, mortal flesh, His reality has the shocking honesty of the Gothic, an
unflinching observation of the body naked, rather than nude. Certainly Jan
YanEyck's.4dam and Zze appear stark naked. These are real people, minutely
observed and reproduced uvith dispassionate accuracy- There is none of the
idealising influence of classical Greece which Van E1.ck's Italian contempo
raries never quite lost. Van Eyck was a technical innovator, developing the new
medium of oil glaze to reproduce reality in finer, rnore glowing detail. His array
of visual effects of texture and surface is dazzling: wisps of hair, stiff brocade,
hand blown glass arrd polished pewter are rendered with an almost unnairrral
clarity. This is a reality constructed through the build-up of crystalline

]lltirpieeSioxz2a.m
Sr Baafskath.iraal. Gtent

observed detail rather than a maste+

adherence to rhe maley scientific laws

of the Renaissance. In the sarne mauner

Mueck assembles al exhaustive
itemisation of the body, from a calloused
heel to a ridged fingernail or rhe
shadowed hollow of a rhroat. Thpre is a
shared sensibility in Mueck's ligures arrd
i n the hard, brilliant clarity of the
Northern revolution in rcalism. Compare
his Seated Woman with Albrecht Diirert
portrait of his father at seventy (in
the National Gallery) or Dead Datl with
ITans Holbein's devastating imagc oI
The ltody of the Dead Christ in tle 'lomb, glassy eyed, his hand
a stiff claw.
A neat binary sysrem was established during the Renaissance,
Gothic
North on the one hand and Graeco Rornal South on the other, excluding
the
Iberian Peninsula altogether. But rhe art which flourished rhere from
the
lifteenrh cenrury onrvards, ignored or tlismissed by the rest of Europe, positively
embraced rhe unsettling power of the hyper real. The Spanish
polychrome
traditiorr saw painters and sculptors collaborating to produce figures of extreme
naturalism, carved in wood before being coated in gesso, smoothed
an<l painted,
arrd linished with glass eyes, ivory teeth, real hair, clothing
and iewels. C.egorro

Fernandez, the seventeenth-century master of the Valladolid school,

muted
rhe gaudy colours and restrained the exaggerated gesture of
his predecessors.
His Ecce Homo s;Jnply asks the viewer to behold Christ as man,
confronting us
rvi r a life-size figure, seemingly of flesh arrd blood. The apogee of the tradition
is represented by therefined and sensitive modelling antl
meticulously accuratc
dctail of Fernandez and his near contemporary Juan Martinez Montafres (about

t568-1649). Theirrechnique of painting the flesh was perfecred

to convey
Arribubd b Al!rc.It Dnr6 G47r
Thz

Paiatci tithz._

1523)

t 1g7

The h*atioral Gnllry, I-ondon

a5

works as any informed perception of art

hislorical rcsonances. Sculpture lhat imitates

historically been suspect on the

grounds that it is likely to provoke a baser
response, working on an emotional or physical
level rathert}an a refined intellecrual one.
Ir. is a distinction that sometimes still seems to
be operating, as betrayed by a critical suspicion
of work with popular, accessible appeal.
The perceived distinction between 'high'
and 'low' became increasingly exaggerateil in
the eighteenth cenLury The craze for ercavating.
studying and eollecting Classical sculpture
grew,lhe dazzling whiteness of its unearthed
state enlbrcing its status as the sublime,
philosophi"ally pure ideal. At the sarne trme,
dolls, dummies, automata and rvax works were increasingly popular
entertainments, so that all lifelike treatments of the body became associateal
with these 'low' or 'debaserl' forms. However, by the end of the century the
incrcasing weight of evidence finally forced a major reassessment of the
antique.u Rather than being the model and embodiment of eighreenth century
moralised aesthedcs, it was discovered that Greek sculpture had been brighlly
painted and ornamented, with wire eyelashes and tinted lips arrd nipplcs.
Now we know that even the Kritian Boy had once had inlaid cyes, and probably
_bare
marble. Ironically,
like the Parthenon - an orgamc wash tomng riown the
having provided the inspiration for the pure marble body of Neoclassicism,
the ancient world was to provoke the nineteenth century into a range of exPeri
ments in painted, tinted and mixed-media sculpture.
Nevertheless, when Edgar Degas first exhibited.his Little Dancer of
Fourtezn Years in t88r, his contemporarv audience found the r*ork deeply
reality

has

Crecorio

Fe..inde t 5:t

l\,l,po DioEs.o

1516)

Caredralico. !-alladol;d

5a

shocking. Nlodelled in wax and tinted rosily,

she was dressed

in

fabric tutu and bodice,

stockings and slippers, with a wig of real hair

ticd back in a green ribbon (the bronze casts

with were not made until

rqer).'fhese materials associated her with
carnival and the grotesque, with scientilic
study, and with the newly rediscovered Spanish

we are now familiar

Catholic tradition, while her brutish features

and assumed immorality horrified

contemporary viewers. One observed that she

'belonged in a zoological, an rropological or
nredical muscum. The crrLrcJ.K. Huy.mans
diagnosed his own sense of revulsion: 'the

terrible reality of this statuette mahes one

rlistinctly uneasy; all one's ideas about
sculpture, about these inanirnate whitenesses, about these memorable clich6s
copied down the centuries, all are overtrrrned.' llis final verdict was that this

'the first truly modern sculpture'-t Rather than an attempt to Portray an

itleal or generalised humanity, she is, like NIueck's figures, a very particular,
individual and unromanticised t)'pe, her personality proclaimed by the pert
rvas

iut of her chin.

In common wiih the [,ittle Dancerardthe Spanish saints, Mueck's figures
have real clothes an d lnarr.In faa, Deai Dals legs are prickled with the artist's
orvn hair (a practice which he has rrot been able to sustain for obvious rcasons).
Though entirely practical, this dctail lends the work a powerlul arua of
reliquary or votive representations of the dead. Since NIueck is extrerrtely
sparing in his choice of garrnetrts or props, each seems rich rvith significalce.
Some are invented and made to scale, but often they are found and bear signs of
rr-ear and usc. The cocoon su[ounding,tlan in Blanhets is ol clean but worn
aldgar

Dees{,354 r9,?)

t.nttcD

eet af

|7ou.e.a Y?ors

(,88o,..astabout,9!2)
P.lnrpd bronz. witn,.usltn
9a.4 x

56

4,9 t a5

5 cm

Tar.,Lonnon (inr xr;6016)

aDd

sil)'

insritutiooal woollen blarkets, their charcoal grey shadowing the depths of

his nest, the blue and pink of the outer layers picking out his faint flush and
blueish veins. Some props are mysterious details, potential clues to a narratir-e
not spelled out to us but others have immediate clear resonan ces- ()ld Wr;ma.n
m Bed is folded between crisp sheets that clearly signify a hosp:ital or nursirrg
}l,orne- Seated Woman has a new woollen twinset and pearls, but the gold
buckled, crocodile shoes bulging over painful corrrs and her neat gold earriugs,
Mueck made for her, She sits on a worn and faded piece of brocade which
manages to conjure an environment of overstuffed sofas and tables crowded
rvith knick knacks, and perhaps future generations who rvill be reminded of
her by tltis piece of cloth.

OaWon,aBd,.ooo
Anrhon,r, d OILr,

l,nd..

A new kind of Realism

Realism today often means real objects, or a concentration on
real and
concrete qualities, as in minimalism: that is, an existentialist realism

thal

ver iabre

rather

an illusionist, counterfeit realism, Even the hyper-real descriptive

art
the last few deeades is driven by impersonal observation anrl an

of

unsparing
factualiry- Ilut Mueck does not merely create the most flawless
illusion of
realityyet achieved: he resrores subiectivity and humanism to the hyper
realIn his minute, unflinching itemisation of real, imperfect human bodies
Mueck
also manages to convey an internal narrative, in a powerful
evocation of
what we might term psychological realisrn. psychology is, after all,
the essenrial
new informant of our contemporary readings, replacing political,
mythical or
religious consftucts. These sculptures are portxaits of emotional states,
and aftel
our initial astonishment ar their verisimilitude it is rheir impression
of an

inner
lile that holds our contiuued attention. Glzost is the embodiment of teenage
selfconsciousness, tlte projection of a stage at which our bodies become
suddenly
large and stxange and acutely ernbarrassing to us. Two metres tall,
rawboned,
slightly pimply, she hurrches against the wall as if wishing her regularion

swim
suit could conceal het Seated Wornan is a portrait of ageing, rhc precise
prtclt
of lili: weariness studied as finely as the varicose veins untlerthick tighb or the
web of lines rretting swollen knuckles_ Shc looks resigned, but not
defeared, as
she holds her hearl cocked slightly against the droop of her
eyelicls and neckScale is one of rhe most powerful tools fuIueck employs with
this
psychological intent. Ihough they appear to be made of rhe sarne
living sruff
as us, his scuptures are not of our world. Not human size, though
certainly
not giants or rnidgets, they are removed to their own dirnension by tliffercnr:es
of sca 1.. Tlrerp a re r-led r hisloricJl associatiorrs attar-hnd to exrrnmes of
size tn
scu]pture. Small objects are precious, and often for private enjoyment
and

halrlling. 'I'he rnorrumental is associated with power aod status, spiritual or

temporal, and so also rvitlr propaganda- N{ueck subverts these associations

59

completely in his distortions of scale, and instead employs it as another means

of intensifying t}le errotional states his figures embody. His colossus, whose size

would be appropriate to a temple or city square, is a young, crouching, barefoot

boy- These shifr in scale are also a means to force the viewer into a fresh way of
seeing. l{e have to re focus, as if looking through a lens, as the scale isolates the
figure fronrits surroundings and concentrates our gaze, At the siuae time we are
made fieshly aware of the space our owl body occupies, measuring ourselves
against what we see. Big Man's threatening bulk is obvious\ magnified still
further by his scale, but as he hunkers in the corner we stard taller than him
and he appears to retreat from us in his introspeclive unhappiness. Moving from

figule to figure, our sense of our physical selves lurches from feeling clumsy
to insubstantial.
Making figures smaller thal life size seems to concentrate and intensify
their presence: a tiny baby can dominate an entire wall of a gallery.In Old
IToman in Bed.,Mreck addresses the mornent before that we see in Dcad Dad. in
which her breath still seems to labour through her half open mouth- She is a
rrrlnerable figtre, shrinking as her }ife ebbs, yet her head is t}le still, cornpelling
focal point of the white bed and larger white space rvhich surround her. Mueck
has been much quoted as sayirrg that Deal Dal's size is such that one could pick
hirn up and cradle him. In fact this seems very far from the impulse rve actually
feel in front of the work, despite our overwhelrning empathl'. Although we carr
see every detail in magnified clarity, the small ligure seems permanently
distant, dwindling, The sculpture is a farewell arrd a laying to rest. It was
inspired not by Mueck seeing his dead father, but by not seeing him: he died less
than peacefully on the other side of the world after a painful illness. IVIueck
describes him as a morose and difficult man rvho loomed large in his son's life.
In death, the artist lays him out, scrubbed, small, silent, peaceful - and beside
enormous tenderness therc is a sense that Mueck is taking back control,
containing and neutralising the realities of his father's life and death.
This is one of the more obvious exarnples of the intensely personal rrature

v.'
of Mueck's work. As well as his father, he has portrayed his wife,s grardmother
in her linal illness, and drawn on his experiences of his children's births. Mas,t,
his first self portrait, was inspired by his imaginiiig how his small daughters
saw him as he scolded them, his scowling face looming above. In a way, each
onc of the artist's works contains an element of self,portraiture quite literally,
as N{ucck will ofren use himself as a convenient reference, stripping off a sock
while linishing the derail on a foot for exarnple - but also in that these portrairs
of ernotional states are acts of exposure by an intensely private and reclusive
artist. llis ligures seem trapped in various forms of vulnerability, introversion
or depression, and appear to resent our scrutiny. Crouching, huddled, in a foetal
positjon or concealing themselves under wraps, they evade our gaze so that we
stoop and peer and pry to meet their eyes, then feel ashamed of the intrusion.
Mueck's gaze, however, is unflinchingly turled on every imperfecrion of his
subiects and himself. Astonishing acr:uracy of detail accompanies expressive
distortions and irrveutions, as we have seen, so that tvhat Mueck creates is nor a
blalk irnitation but an invocation of reality, summoneil out of this minute
perfect.ionism. Its distilled and concentrated essence fits in a very literal way
Bernard Berenson's delinition of art as 'life with a higher coeflicient of reality,.
Though infinitelv painstaking and laborious, his absolute technical rlastery
is such that the technique disappears ahogether, leaving us with the lact of the
body itself, 'Ilis art conceals its art', as Or.id savs of his PT6znalubn,
Srrsanna

Gree'e.

Baudelarre! addrers rorhe

Academi" Fiscai* S6lon ol ra46;

Jeph Ma+eh,

!d$

S.ulprure ib

) a ;a,1 n ria wl 60 no 6 tga2, ;n

Sup,. Realka, Cntual, ntholoA,ed Grqory B.rlltrl. Ne$ \;.t

Ernn Xnr tud Otb (uz l-8 ,r'

Itbah a.A Lfasr in thz Imae. of th.

.rzrrr,lld H.rrh r9i9

Dz\;d FreratEry Th. PMt. oJ

Izaeek ttuai.s ;n rtu hBttu aad

th.oryoJ

dtqe.

Cnicago

$as

Cni E A aise, ltIod2 m Pn;t ! d

n-'grl sFE, a ,r.
Gul
^&,'d!B
91'lFE@M,'*r"antm

aadtss,

Nd Yd*

1996

Spai6dl]r QuErmr.&
rDdi,g. oI h;
ldi*
'art
pobEhlrmyE ffir:lrFlr

Qulmi
d

!.lc
Srlloa rrE-ns. NiFdrl
CaiEI [).td. e 7L C.re.g/
Sir4F ?,rr.,9q.d Ard,6
Ceit in woUL.rs llttrd

'