Mueck's work showed at the Christchurch Art Gallery from the end of 2010 through to January 2011. Research Mueck's sculpture in order to answer the following questions;
1. Mueck's sculpture is described as 'hyper-real'. Define the meaning of this term and apply it to his work.
"Hyper-Real" can also be refferred to as "Hyper-Reality" or "Hyper-Realisim" which means to take someone into a place of thought or conciousness from which they cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy. Mueck has taken this concept and applied it to his own works of Art. We see that his work appears as "real" as his rendering of the silicone or clay in which he creates these sculptures, they seem life like, as if they're almost someone that we know. But it is the scale of these sculptures that sends us into a fanstasy, large scale face and new born baby makes our eyes study them closer as it is something we are not familiar with. Ron Mueck has become a well known hyperrealist sculptor.
2. Mueck is not interested in making life size sculpture. Find out why he is more interested
in working with the scale of the figure which is not life size, and mention 2 works which use
scale that is either larger or smaller than life.
Mueck believes that life size sculptures are not intresting to people, to create to larger or smaller sized scales makes people take an intrest and to stand back and think. "It makes you take notice in a way that you wouldn’t do with something that’s just normal." It is this that makes Mueck a hyperrealist.
"Dead Dad" "In Bed"
These two works show us how much Muecks work varies, from "Dead Dad" which is a half scale scuplture of his father, the only work in which Mueck used his own hair, To "In Bed" that illustrates how big Muecks sculptures can be.
3. Define Renaissance Humanism , and analyze the term in order to apply it to an example of Mueck's work. Note that the contemporary definition of Humanism is much broader than the Renaissance definition.
Renasissance Humanism was a cultural and educational reform agaist the Midievil scholastic education. Which focused on preparing men to becoming doctors and lawyers by studying logic, natural philosophy, medicine and law . This reform was lead by scholars, writers and leaders now known as Humanists. These Humanists taught classical literature and the Arts that surround it. It helped people become individuals and express themselves in a way that they could not before.
This applies to Muecks art work as he takes something we are all familiar with (people) and expresses himself by drastically changing the size of the people in his works, thus taking something familiar and putting it out of context.
4. Research and discuss one of Mueck's sculptures that you might find challenging or exciting to experience in an art gallery. Describe the work, upload an image of the work, and explain your personal response to the work. Comment on other student blogs to develop the discussion around the variety of our own personal and individual responses to art and design.
Here we see a large scaled young boy that looks almost afraid of the reaction he is going to get in the exibition. his face hides behind his arms while his eyes look as though he has recently been hurt or is afraid of something that ma happen in the near future. I feel as though this work is very powerful, because of its size and also the emotion it brings to the people that view it. I feel as though Mueck might of made this work this scale so that the expression on the boys face will also be exaggerated.
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i Agree on the way that you had said 'fraid of the reaction he is going to get in the exibition.' he is almost like a big 'freak' of nature because he is so largely scaled. I think that the use of the artist making the sculpture a boy is very powerful because of the sensitivity and judgments that young people are afraid of. The boy to me is depicted as being big to show him being freakishly big and large because that is what he is feeling possibly to other people because he is feeling like an outsider because of the development happening of becoming a man. The way he is looking is not looking at the audience because he is 'afraid' of something or ashamed. His body language emphasizes this because of the crossing of the arms hiding his face and heart. The fact that he is half naked also shows he is uncomfortable.
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