Ron Mueck

This solo exhibition of works by the sculptor Ron Mueck, known for his extraordinarily lifelike, empathetic renderings of his subjects, includes five major new works commissioned by the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris, where they were recently presented to an enthusiastic audience of 75,000 visitors. Additional works on loan from North American collections are added to the Brooklyn exhibition, the only United States presentation before the show travels to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Included in the exhibition are Dead Dad (1996–97), commemorating the death of Mueck’s father through a smaller than life-size sculpture, which captivated visitors to the Brooklyn Museum when it was included in the exhibition Sensation, and Wild Man (2005), a nine-foot sculpture of a naked, bearded man clutching the stool he is seated on. Through his detailed works, which are always either smaller than life-size or monumental, Mueck explores the ambiguous relationship of reality to artifice. His earlier pieces were sculpted with fiberglass, but recently he has begun to work with silicone, which is more flexible and allows greater ease in shaping body parts and implanting hair. Born in Australia in 1958, Ron Mueck began his career making puppets for children’s television, including a stint with Jim Henson and Sesame Street. Since 1996, he has devoted himself full time to his art. He has had solo shows at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D. C., and the Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, and his work has been included in numerous group shows.

ive works in the exhibition were commissioned by the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris (on view November 2005–February 2006) and travel to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, August–October 2006. The expanded Brooklyn Museum presentation is coordinated by Charles Desmarais, Deputy Director for Art.

Ron Mueck is organized by the Brooklyn Museum in association with the National Gallery of Canada.