Ron Mueck: Encounter A review of star sculptor Ron Mueck’s larger than life Sydney exhibition

By Dee Jefferson

We start arse first: two firm and fulsome buttocks, eye height and each double the size of my head. This will be visitors’ first encounter with the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ summer exhibition, Ron Mueck: Encounter – the largest ever Australian showing of the expat star sculptor’s work, spanning almost three decades.

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The AGNSW exhibition is thoughtfully curated around the logic of the encounter between viewer and sculpture. The works are presented in clusters that elucidate Mueck’s preoccupations and sensibilities, with enough space for visitors to encounter each figure from various angles; crucially, the exhibition is concise enough to not feel overwhelming – 15 works, out of Mueck’s total output of 49.

The show opens with a cluster of his most humanistic and emotionally plangent works, arranged so that visitors can trace an imaginary narrative thread: from expectant Pregnant Woman to the shellshocked young Woman with Shopping, staring blankly ahead as her baby peers up from under her buttoned-up coat; the teenage Young Couple, whose body language betrays a troubled relationship dynamic; and the diminutive and plainly discontented middle-aged Spooning Couple.

After the initial pop of cognitive dissonance – so big! Or: so small! – and fizz of wonder at their technical execution, you are easily drawn into ruminations about the inner lives and backstories of these characters. Some will have emotional responses. Pause longer, and you start to think about the aesthetics and artifice of the pieces; the tactics deployed to produce these psychological effects. You realise his adherence to realism is less slavish than strategic.