Ron Mueck. Fondation Cartier
The monumental installation Mass, presented by the artist Ron Mueck, comprises one hundred giant human skulls piled high and reconfigured by the artist for each venue. The installation offers a physical and psychological experience that captivates visitors and encourages them to reflect on fundamental aspects of human existence. The title alone provides a glimpse of the work’s diverse interpretations. The multiple meanings of the word “mass”, from disordered heap to formal religious ceremony, are starting points for each viewer’s personal encounter.
With A Girl (2006), visitors find themselves confronted with a gigantic newborn and themselves become the object of her first glimpse of the new world it has been born into. With traces of blood and umbilical cord intact, her body is marked by the experience of delivery. The staggering distortion of scale forces us to acknowledge the fundamentality of this moment in all our lives; the miracle and ordeal of birth.
Ron Mueck’s three-meter-high trio of dogs stand in the dimly lit space, confronting visitors with their immensity and menacing presence.
Man in a Boat (2002) is a particularly mysterious scene. A man covers his naked body with his arms as he sits in the prow of an elegant clinker-built boat, craning forward with a questioning and searching gaze. As is often the case in Mueck’s work, this figure seems “to withdraw or drift off into inner states we can’t quite access”, in the words of art critic Justin Paton.
