Ron Mueck

While popular with the gallery‐going public, the hyperrealistic sculpture
of contemporary Australian artist Ron Mueck rarely attracts the attention
of prominent visual art theorists. This art theoretical neglect seems to
hinge on the microscopic verisimilitude of Mueck’s figurative sculptures,
for while some art critics venerate the virtuosity of his technique others
diagnose his hyperreal style as populist and conceptually impoverished.

This study forges a nexus between Mueck’s oeuvre and Sigmund Freud’s
psychoanalytic theory of the uncanny in order to ascribe deeper
conceptual import to the artist’s work. Employing Freud’s renowned
concept of ‘the return of the repressed,’ as well as his ideas about how the
(con)fusion of categorical divisions between the familiar and foreign, the
real and imaginary triggers uncanny feeling, I examine how Mueck’s art
generates uncanniness on two distinct levels. Firstly, I investigate how
certain formal, aesthetic and symbolic aspects of the works cultivate
uncanny feeling in the spectator. The second stratum of uncanniness in
Mueck’s work is tied to a much broader socio‐cultural field, inhabiting the
vicissitudes of the human body in contemporary posthuman culture. I will
argue that Mueck’s oeuvre can be read as a reaction to and a reflection of
the technologised, progressively unnatural being that is the posthuman
subject, carving an uncanny space wherein the familiar and unfamiliar, the
natural and the artificial, are in constant communion.

Two key aims have motivated this project. First, I sought to investigate
possible reasons for my own fascination with Mueck’s hyperrealist
sculpture, an attraction to his work echoed by its popularity with the
gallery‐going public. I also aimed to develop new knowledge on the work
of a contemporary artist who has achieved a relatively high profile in the
international art world but whose practice has received little serious or
sustained art historical and theoretical analysis.

Este artigo analisa algumas questões levantadas pelas exposições de Ron Mueck e Patricia Piccinini realizadas na cidade de São Paulo entre 2014 e 2016, que apresentam características em comum. Foram recortados trabalhos que evidenciam a maneira como ambos os artistas ficcionam a realidade humana com objetivo de problematizar seus valores culturais, desde pressupostos cotidianos à ética nas biociências. A partir desse recorte é possível traçar linhas gerais sobre as exposições e sobre o objeto de pesquisa de cada artista, com destaque para o imaginário sobre o corpo. A análise se faz por meio de uma interlocução com teóricos e críticos contemporâneos, em especial com o conceito de profanação, segundo Giorgio Agamben, e o de real ficcionado, conforme Jacques Rancière.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE
Arte contemporânea. Ficção, real e realidade. Humanidade. Teoria e crítica de arte. Estética e política.

RESUMO Este artigo tenta compreender a obra do escultor Ron Mueck (Melbourne, 1958) pela via do existencialismo de Jean-Paul Sartre (Paris, 1905 – Paris, 1980), abrindo espaço para questionar acerca de como a Arte pode lidar com os questionamentos do nosso mundo de hoje. Busca-se, aqui, desvendar as possíveis significações culturais que a escultura atual com foco extremamente humano pode nos trazer, adensando o debate sobre os mecanismos de criação artística atual e oferecendo elementos à melhor compreensão do valor estético da escultura de cunho " existencialista ". Ainda, um ponto de grande valor crítico e que detectei na exposição de Ron Mueck no Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro foi o jogo de proporções da qual se serve o artista para nos mostrar que suas esculturas não são seres humanos reais, mas uma mimésis da realidade interior do ser humano na atualidade. ABSTRACT This article tries to understand the works by sculptor Ron Mueck (Melbourne, 1958) via the existentialism by Jean-Paul Sartre (Paris, 1905 – Paris, 1980), opening spaces to question about how Art deals with the questions regarding our actual world. Here we seek to reveal the possible cultural significations of actual sculptures representing the extremely human can bring to us, trying to intensify the debate about how art is produced today and offering elements to better understand the aesthetic value of " existentialist " sculpture. Also, a point of great artistic value that I notices at Ron 1 Professor assistente da Universidade Federal do Tocantins, Doutor em Humanidades pela Universiteit Leiden (Países Baixos), Mestre em Estudos Latino-americanos e Ameríndios (2009) e Mestre em História da Arte Moderna e Contemporânea (2007), ambos mestrados da Univeristeit Leiden. Pós-graduado lato sensu em Educação Infantil (2012) pelo Centro Universitário Barão de Mauá (SP) e Licenciado pleno em Educação Artística (1999) pela UERJ. Áreas de interesse: Arte-Educação, Artes e Culturas Indígenas, Arte Atual.

This article analyses recent (2009) work of Australian-born, British-based hyperrealist sculptor, Ron Mueck, in order to show how it not only engages with a range of specific contemporary concerns and debates, but also operates as a visual deconstruction of Cartesian subjectivity. In order to identify Mueck’s deconstructive practice, the article uses a combination of multimodal, sensory and discourse analyses to situate Mueck’s work discursively and institutionally, and to explore the ways in which it provokes reader engagement. As the author identifies, each of the works – Youth, Still life and Drift – addresses specific issues and they all provoke a self-reflexive engagement that brings together all aspects of viewer engagement (sensory, emotional, intellectual, spiritual), challenging the mind/body dichotomy that characterizes the Cartesian subject.

Abstract
From earth to heaven.
The influence of the Aldeia da Terra project in the conception of a new artistic lan-guage.

The barrística, also the art of the figured in clay, although with previous manifestations founded schools in Portugal, namely in Barcelos, Caldas da Rainha and Estremoz, from the middle of the 18th century. This happened from consolidation of the introduction of the Nativity representation in Portugal, by the construction of the Palace of Mafra and from its Italian influences. Today as a manifestation of folk art is a tradition. How-ever, and especially since the 1970s, many contemporary craftsman / artists look for different expressions in this art. These manifestations, which go beyond the themes of the sacred and profane, of rurality and traditions, often also cross the boundary of what is conventionally called Craft, entering into the universe of erudite or more sub-jective Art and its languages and symbols.
Aldeia da Terra was a project that consciously used the themes of tradition but intro-duced others: The caricature, the social portrait, the humor and the irreverence, ex-ploring new limits. One of these limits, which I propose to explore better in this Mas-ter's work, with the proposal of a new language in barrística, is precisely the indefinite frontier that eventually separates the so-called "Craftwork" from "Art".

Sculptures have been used to document and express views on gender roles in society during the time of their creation. Ancient cultures created fertility sculptures which represented their views on the importance of reproduction (Zygmont., 2018). Contemporary sculptures model the female form, relying on symbolism to communicate the body image women are made to conform to. The Palaeolithic era and the 21st century are both similar in the ways that society centralises women's roles. The Venus of Willendorf expresses how the female body was objectified for fertility in its era (Kettlewell, 2016); In comparison, "Woman with Shopping" by Ron Mueck showcases the restrictions modern society puts on women as a result of their objectification. It represents role of the workingclass female after fertility. Both artworks make statements that reflect on their time period, proving that the role of women has not fully changed since the Palaeolithic era.

This paper demonstrates one of the new directions in Cultural Studies, which is the study of the senses, sometimes called the 'sensorial turn'.  As David Howes notes, sensory studies questions the verbal focus of older models of analysis and the visual focus of some more recent models, arguing that neither acknowledges the complexity of our engagement with the world, which includes all of the senses.  As well, he argues, both the verbal and the visual model of analysis assume that our experience is consistent and coherent - that we see and feel and think about things and events and people in a coherent and consistent way - and yet our experience is far more "dynamic, relational … and conflicted" (Howes, 2006: 115).  In other words, our different senses and the understandings of the world they generate may be in conflict or may interrelate in a variety of ways, which means that we can simultaneously hold contradictory views of and ideas about things and events and people and the ideas and arguments associated with them.  This paper explores this understanding of the senses by reference to the work of sculptor, Ron Muek and focuses particularly on the sense of touch.

Ron Mueck, Jamie Salmon e Sam Jinks são alguns dos artistas contemporâneos que trabalham com a estética hiper-realista em esculturas. Notamos em suas obras a intenção de apresentar corpos humanos próximos a um estado " natural " que se afasta dos padrões estéticos do corpo jovem e perfeito tão longamente explorado pelas mídias de massa. Os trabalhos expõem a fragilidade do corpo por meio da representação das marcas do tempo e de expressões de dor e angústia. Neste trabalho, interessa-nos compreender o potencial estético-político que tais obras carregam. Nossa hipótese é que o biopoder que age sobre os corpos na sociedade contemporânea global e desmaterializada seja um agente que contribua para um maior engajamento sobre imagens que aguçam o sentido háptico (ligado ao tato), como acontece no caso das esculturas citadas.) mostram que o sentido háptico carrega em si um potencial de transformação por estimular o corpo, retirando-o do lugar de espectador passivo, de desengajamento e de distanciamento para um estado ativo, de contato e de proximidade. Nossa intenção é refletir sobre as poéticas das esculturas hiper-realistas contemporâneas em sua relação com a desconstrução da imagem corporal.


ABSTRACT: Ron Mueck, Jamie Salmon and Sam Jinks are some of the contemporary artists who work with hyper-realistic aesthetics in sculptures. It is noted in their works the intention to present human bodies close to a "natural" state distant from the aesthetic standards of the young and perfect body so long exploited by the mass media. The works expose the body fragility through the representation of aging signs and expressions of pain and anguish. This paper focus in understanding the aesthetic-political potential that such works carry. The hypothesis is that that biopower acting on bodies in contemporary global dematerialized society is an agent that contributes to a greater engagement in images that sharpen the haptic sense (connected to touch), as in the case of the sculptures cited. Several authors (Deleuze and Guattari, 1997; Marks, 2000; Paterson, 2007) show that the haptic sense carries within itself a potential to transformation.

1958 yılında Avustralya'da doğmuştur. Oyuncak yapan anne babasının yanında yetişen Mueck kariyerinin ilk yirmi yılında profesyonel kukla yapımcılığı ve oynatıcılığı ile uğraşmıştır. Çocuklar için hazırlanan bir televizyon programı olan Shirl's Neighborhood ve yine bir çocuk filmi olan Labyrinth, sanatçının hem kukla karakterlerini gerçekleştirdiği hem de seslendirmelerini yaptığı prodüksiyonlar arasındadır. Mueck seksenlerde Londra'ya taşınır, burada kendi firmasını kurup reklamlar fotoğrafları için modeller üretmeye başlar. BU süre içinde edindiği birikim onun tekniğinin temellerini oluşturur. Mueck, 1996 yılında Paulo Rego için yaptığı Pinokyo heykeli ile Londra'nın ünlü galericisi ve sanat koleksiyoneri Charles Saatchi'nin dikkatini çekmiştir. Saatchi, 1997 yılında Royal Academy'deki "Sensation" sergisinde Mueck'in Dead Dad isimli erken dönem heykeline yer vermiştir.

Ron Mueck (Melbourn, 1958-) is a sculptor living and working in London, known to the wide public for his pieces Boy (1999), Big Man (2000), A Girl (2001) and In Bed (2005) amongst other. Birth, death, age, loneliness and companionship are recurring themes in his work. His narration escapes from his traditional sculpting methods. He is not a realistic sculptor, he goes way beyond that: his figures undergo various scale transformation. Either they are scaled down to miniatures or up in a monumental scale in order that their inner life and state of mind is reinforced.
In an era of digital and abstract art, the lifelike sculptures of Ron Mueck express a unique tenderness and sympathy for humanity, for the man, the body – a shell of sensations, emotions, memories and passions. Mueck caresses the flaw, the debility, the vulnerability, the attrition. Ηe knows how to attract and repel: the detailed depiction invites the observer to a mental, an existential journey, leaves an intermediate space for reflection and simultaneously averts any need for personal identification.

Este artigo tenta compreender a obra do escultor Ron Mueck ( Melbourne, 1958 ) pela via do existencialismo de Jean-Paul Sartre (Paris, 1905 – Paris, 1980), abrindo espaco para questionar acerca de como a Arte pode lidar com os questionamentos do nosso mundo de hoje. Busca-se, aqui, desvendar as possiveis significacoes culturais que a escultura atual com foco extremamente humano pode nos trazer, adensando o debate sobre os mecanismos de criacao artistica atual e oferecendo elementos a melhor compreensao do valor estetico da escultura de cunho “existencialista”. Ainda, um ponto de grande valor critico e que detectei na exposicao de Ron Mueck no Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro foi o jogo de proporcoes da qual se serve o artista para nos mostrar que suas esculturas nao sao seres humanos reais, mas uma mimesis da realidade interior do ser humano na atualidade.

La imaginación escultórica de Xavier Mascaró abreva en los mitos de civilizaciones antiguas como la egipcia y las culturas del Egeo. No se trata únicamente de los referentes temáticos —la barca fúnebre, las máscaras micénicas—, sino que también la selección y el tratamiento de los materiales participan de esta evocación de una afectividad religiosa eterna.

A propósito de Talismán,
Proyecto H Contemporáneo, 18 marzo-15 de junio 2016,
Colonia Roma, Ciudad de México.