HappenArt

Ron Mueck: 25 years of sculpture 1996-2021
Thaddaeus Ropac – Oct 13 to Nov 13, 2021, London (UK)

Ron Mueck 25 years of sculpture, 1996-2021. The artist’s first exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac, will mark the most comprehensive gallery study of the internationally renowned sculptor to date. From his biggest to his smallest works. The exhibition features Mueck’s most famous sculptures from a career spanning two and a half decades. Presented alongside new and unpublished works. His unparalleled eye for physical and emotional detail traces the full spectrum of the human experience. From the beginning of life during pregnancy and childbirth. Until its end in death, with unsettling power.

Dead Dad.

The artist’s best-known work, Dead Dad (1996-97), may be on display in the UK for the first time in over 20 years. It was first featured in the Royal Academy’s landmark exhibition Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection (1997), which helped establish the artist’s international reputation. Acquired by Charles Saatchi when it was created, the work has since been part of the Stefan T. Edlis collection, whose sculpture is on loan.

The play stopped most of the [Sensation] visitors… in their tracks. Dead Dad was something so shockingly real and shockingly unreal at the same time as unexpected trauma. He left an indelible mark. One of Mueck’s earliest works, he immediately established his uniqueness.

The seven ages of man.

In art historian Jasper Sharp’s essay for the exhibition, he examines Mueck’s sculptures through the prism of the seven ages of man. Referring to William Shakespeare’s monologue “Everybody’s a Scene”, As You Like It (1623). The works on display trace the full spectrum of human experience. From “the womb to the grave” as Robert Rosenblum describes it, including the infant. the schoolboy, the young lover, the soldier, the middle-aged justice, the eldest and the “last scene of everything … second childishness and simple forgetfulness”.