Ron Mueck: Encounter Art exhibitions to see across Australia before the end of summer

By Hannah Story

It's been 15 years since the last exhibition of Australian artist Ron Mueck's hyper-realistic sculptures arrived in Australia.

Now, you can see 15 of his works — dating as far back as 1998, the year of his first solo show in London — at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) as part of the Sydney International Art Series.

It's the largest-ever local exhibition of Mueck's art, and features nine sculptures never seen before in Australia. Havoc, one of two new works in the exhibition, features eight snarling dogs, rearing for a fight.

Havoc is an evolution in Mueck's richly detailed practice. While still vivid and full of life like his human sculptures, big and small, these dogs step away from strict verisimilitude, seeming to ask questions about violence, aggression and fragmentation in society.

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Ultimately, curator Jackie Dunn says Mueck is asking visitors to "stop and look".

"Not only at surfaces, but at our gestures, our poses, the way we communicate with each other, how we feel when we have an encounter with another — whether that's a real human person or an extraordinary sculpture that, for a moment, feels truly human."