1. Mueck's sculpture is described as 'hyper-real'. Define the meaning of this term and explain how it is evident in his work.
"The simulation of something that never really existed" - Jean Baudrillard.
"The authentic fake" - Umberto Eco.
Hyper real is a term used to describe an exaggeration of something true or real. Blowing up, or increasing the size of something on photoshop, as an example, could be considered "hyper-real" as it is exaggerating the true size of an object or image. It also could only relate to objects that are man made, for example an actual person, or a animal. Taking an animal or a human, and increasing the size dramatically, or making it incredibly small, is what is considered hyper real.
In Mueck's work, he does this by producing a human face titled "mask II" (2002), and also a baby titled "A Girl" (2006). But instead of creating an ordinary, life-sized sculpture of these objects, he takes the term "hyper-real" into action by producing these pieces and exaggerating the original sizes and making them alot larger. As you can see in the photo of the piece shown below titled "A Girl", there is a real person standing beside it, observing the piece. This person shows the viewer how exaggerated the size of the baby actually is, as the sculpture makes the person look incredibly tiny.
2. Mueck says he 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 finds the human body fascinating, but prefers to work with hyper-real sized objects due to the fact that we see the human everyday, as an ordinary size. This size I am talking about is in general us. Our height, our width, our appearance. And because we know what we are, and how we look in terms of size and shape, Mueck see's that as the opportunity to produce something that is the complete oppisite and requires alot more time, patience and practice. Alot larger, whilst keeping the detail seen on a normal sized person; something that will shock the viewer and fascinate them at the same time.
3. Define Renaissance Humanism , and identify which aspects of Humanism can be seen in Mueck's work. Note that the contemporary definition of Humanism is much broader than the Renaissance definition.
All in all, Renaissance Humanism in a way gave birth to individualism - it was the beginning of when people stopped doing what the Churches and their religion told them to do, and started to search of things that ended up creating who they were in terms of morals, behavior, and truth's to live by. It is "a system of thought that considers human beings..." ( ALVC Resource Book, Page 55 ). The result of the Renaissance Humanism; scholars and such started to study the books of poetry, art, and classical history in general. It basically turned people from being a sheep, to finding themselves and breaking the boundaries to discover who they really are, what they can believe in and what they don't.
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.
This is a sculpture of two old ladies, titled “Two Women”. It
was done in 2005. This would be challenging for me due to the fact that it is
significantly different to the other sculptures that were shown in his
exhibition. The reason for this, is for many reasons, the first being the fact
that it was the only sculpture in the whole exhibition to be clothed. Ron has
clothed these women with coats, which give the suggestion that like these coats
appear; that these women could and have lived a lifetime. The shoes they wear
are very mature and sensible also, which further tells us that these women are
more interested in the safety and sensibility of the purpose of clothing,
rather than being a part of a trend or fashion sense. Another thing is the fact that with Ron's other works, there are something distinctive about them that give us the idea of them being larger or smaller than they should be (hyper - real). But with this, when you look at it, although it is smaller than two women should be, the women show something to the viewer/passes a thought through the viewers head that destroys the idea that they are smaller than usual. These women strike me as
the type of old lady that would ask me to get off my skateboard as I skate past
them, the type that would send nasty facial expressions to people generally
being themselves. The reason for this is because they seem to be very “to
themselves” sort of people. Very picky; the type of lady that would say “back
in my day...” and rant on about how things were different back when she was in
her childhood. What also interest’s me about this, is the facial expressions
shown by the women. It puts the viewer in a position where he/she feels as if
the sculpture is showing two women that are actually thinking about the viewer,
rather than giving the viewer the opportunity to think about them. It puts the viewer ( myself anyway ) in a
position that gives us a feeling that we are doing something wrong, or in their
eyes i am some sort of horrid being that should not exist. Obviously that is
dramatically dramatic, but basically when i look at this sculpture, I get this
feeling of insecurity. That all of a sudden instead of them being the subject
matter, and the world is looking at them, it has turned around to me being the
subject matter, and the world – including them – is watching me.
(I am not bothering about posting a link as i was only on google images)
