Ron Mueck At GOMA

So I finally got round to go seeing the Ron Mueck exhibition, as part of “The Weekend of Scott”, and thought I’d share my impressions, in case anyone cared.
Overall, I thought it was a bit neither here nor there. It’s a small exhibit, with only 12 pieces on display, but I guess that’s 12 more than I’d seen before, and it wasn’t expensive, so I can’t really complain about that. I guess the issue I had with it was, once you get past appreciating the technical skill involved, what’s left? I guess I could’ve joined the free tour, and listened to someone else tell me what I should think about it, but I guess I wasn’t in the mood for someone else’s opinions. But there were pieces I enjoyed, so let me share my thoughts on those.
The first piece I liked was the large bushy haired naked man on a chair. You turn the corner and there he is. When I first encountered him, he as surrounded by a crowd on the tour, and he rose from the middle of them, like he was reacting to being the centre of attention.



He looked uncomfortable under the scrutiny of so many strangers, and I think that’s why I liked this one, because it seemed like part of the environment, it seemed more real, it was telling it’s own story with the crowd of onlookers. That’s why the giant baby didn’t work for me, it’s just a giant baby, lying there. In another context, like a supermarket aisle or a park, where it would seem strange and alien, that would work better, but in a gallery situation, I’m just left with a big baby and telling me nothing.
I liked the old lady carrying the bunch of sticks, but don’t really have anything to say about her, or a photo. The small guy in the boat I thought was interesting, but only up to a point.


The guy on the wall floating on an inflatable bed thing, really impressed me with it’s lifelikeness. I think it was because of the sunglasses, we weren’t able to see his dead eyes, so he had more of the illusion of life.


I think the last one of the exhibit was the one I liked most. It was a picture made real, a frozen moment of a scene, taken from it’s context and put on display for us to view. A young black man lifts his shirt to reveal a wound, which we assume is a knife wound, or at least I did.


Once again, the technical skill on display is amazing, the sculpture so lifelike. But it’s because it’s this frozen moment that fires the imagination that makes it so appealing to me. There’s a story here, and we are left with only this clue to fill in the details.


I really would have liked to have seen his "Boy" sculpture, that was the first one of his I knew of, but oh well. There was also a half hour documentary playing which you can just go see separate to the exhibition which was interesting., detailing the production of his sculpture of an oversized pregnant woman. Really pregnant.

I apologise for the quality of the photos, but I just took them on my phone camera, so that's why they're not so great.