“Seated Woman” by Ron Mueck PDF

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Summary

Ron Mueck has become a place among the most sought-after artists of the 21st century with individual figures that portray human psychology acutely...

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Laura Ramos Profesor: Dr. Víctor Soto HUMA 1315

“Seated Woman” Human body and reality are two essential paradigms in artistic representation. There is no more direct pictorial theme than the human body, because nothing is more tangible for artists and spectators than what is part of their most intimate reality. Since olden times, interest in the illusion of reality has been consolidated through creative manifestation, as expressed by the platonic concept of "artistic mimesis". In Western realistic art, the search for anatomical coherence and physical cohesion between models of representation and real bodies has been dominant. With the advent of the postmodern rupture another aspect of the realistic materialization of bodies in art has become manifest: since it is precisely an element that each individual share with other beings as part of the same species, any image of the body affects the deepest political, sexual, religious and aesthetic disagreements. This added a substantial transformation in the means chosen by art - the domain of photography and the new media that renewed pictorial realism - and in the atomization of the artistic search, beyond the traditional pictorial representation, towards the field of the conceptual, the action and the text. Within this context and with a sculptural work identified as hyperrealist, Ron Mueck has become a place among the most sought-after artists of the 21st century with individual figures that portray human psychology acutely. Interested in the representation of life from its early stages to the terminal instances, its pieces convey the loneliness, vulnerability and alienation of modern private existence, causing reactions of compassion and concern among viewers. Faced

Ramos 2 with the human figure of silicone, acrylic and fiberglass, the viewers cannot help feeling the discomfort of someone who invades the intimate existence of the characters of Mueck with whom, paradoxically, he feels identified.

Hyperrealism, and on a large scale also ... Mueck is a genius of figurative representation, with an evident knowledge of anatomy and an extraordinary technical skill, he makes his sculptures look alive, despite being made of silicones, fiberglass and acrylic. Still, Ron Mueck likes theatricality. Realism, yes, but with artifice. It is seen in its unconventional proportions, in its postures, in its surreal scenes, in its runaway sense of humor ...

Ron Mueck was born in Australia; his parents were toy manufacturers, something that would probably influence his art. From there it goes to advertising, where he creates his first hyperrealist sculptures with the aim of photographing them. But soon he feels the need to create sculptures in their most traditional sense (to be able to surround them and observe them from all points of view). Success does not take long to arrive. The art world (which he detests) cannot help but surrender to his technical expertise. He does not like the cackling of current artists. He likes to work in his workshop and his work speaks for itself.

Mueck is an artist and wants to tell stories. His characters are narrative, lyrical, full of life also in the psychological ... Almost always naked, either doing everyday tasks, or jobs, or just lying down, his creations seem to tell stories that the viewer recognizes. The sculpture of the elderly woman, Untitled (Seated Woman) it really caught my attention of not just for the exacting copy of a human being, but also for the sullen face of the woman who

Ramos 3 was inviting to reflection on old age. Mueck has won an outstanding place in the world art scene in a relatively short time thanks to the impressive verisimilitude of the most incredible anatomical details of his personages that cause the spectator to reflect on the limits between reality and fiction.

In this sculpture Mueck faithfully reproduces the human body, with all kinds of meticulous details every hair, every wrinkle, every pore of the skin ... the face of this woman does not reflect any describable feeling. It is not possible to distinguish with certainty the state of mind of this woman, it can be translated in several emotions depending on each personal perception. He never makes his pieces life-size because he avoids portraiture and does not want to limit himself to the faithful reproduction of anatomy. Sculpts in clay until the work contains all the details it will exhibit when it is finished, the figure serves as a mold for the resin, on which it inserts the hair and eyes and creates possible spots and moles on the skin. Each element is a work of art itself, the author hand-paints the iris of each eye; cut, paint and place each hair separately; If the character wears shoes, he sculpts them with the exact texture of the worn footwear, if he is dressed, Mueck supervises the type of garment and fabric that he will wear to control to perfection that the fall of the clothes is natural, it is simply incredible.

His works have the particularity of showing the individuals in the most exposed and vulnerable states generating a profound physical and emotional empathy. The majority evoke fundamental human experiences, like birth, childhood, maternity, childbirth, maturity, old age and death. Others offer an enigmatic narrative impregnated with metaphors and allegories. Ron Mueck utilizes scale in his sculptures to provide emotive and expressive effects. The space

Ramos 4 also plays a crucial role in the interaction with the work and the action that it represents. The monumental scale gives the spectator an advantageous position to study the expressions and to analyze each detail of the body language. This pensive woman captures moments of solitary reflection, with eyes open and a gaze lost in apparent indifference to the world around them, of the spectator who is observing them. Mueck is able to express in them the notion of introspection and masterfully reveal the level of sophistication of a thought.

Each one of the sculptures of Ron Mueck communicates a panorama of the rich and complex interior life that develops in that moment and challenges the intellect to think that is does not matter how real some images may seem, in the end they are merely representations.

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Sources Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, www.themodern.org/exhibition/past/ron-mueck-/1808.

“Art Blart.” Back to the Front Page, artblart.com/tag/ron-mueck-seated-woman/. “The Progress Big Man: A Conversation with Ron Mueck by Sarah Tanguy.” International Sculpture Center, www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag03/jul_aug03/mueck/mueck.shtml.

“Ron Mueck.” Widewalls, www.widewalls.ch/artist/ron-mueck/....