Sometimes I am completely surprised by the things I haven’t blogged. So surprised, in fact, that I search for hours on my own site, swearing it is there, looking for the obscure reference to the thing that I’ve known was cool, or funny, or important for so long. Sometimes I find that I neglected to tell about it. I am always surprised.

A few years ago, Witold introduced me to the amazing work of Ron Mueck. I went to a NY gallery to see the enormous “Boy”, and maybe a few other pieces. I was so awestruck by Boy that I don’t remember anything else. I can’t remember a lot about it, but the only NY show I can find that corresponds to the approximate date was at the James Cohen Gallery in 2002. Incidentally, James Cohen Gallery’s website has a nice little photo gallery of Ron’s work.

This is Boy, with a viewer for scale:

No, this is not Ron Mueck. This a HUGE sculpture called Big Man. See the photo below, from the excellent Washington Post gallery, with the onlookers for scale.

Recently, somebody blogged about Mueck, and I made a ta-da to myself to blog about him. Unfortunately I lost the original reference and can’t give proper credit, or find that particular link. Sorry. Instead, I did other research in order to give you all the best introduction possible.

Ron Mueck is a sculptor of the oddest and most talented kind. He works in various mixed media, from latex to fiberglass, to his own hair. He was formerly a special effect modeler, and his hyper-realistic style was obviously influenced by that experience. The mixed media gives him the freedom away from clay, to work at any size he likes. Wikipedia has a nice, brief bio and collection of links.

His work is stunningly lifelike, but its draw is really its size. Ron creates pieces much smaller or much larger than realistic, and the effect is disturbing. Boy, the piece I once saw is enormous, nearly 20 feet high, hunching over - if standing, I think the Boy would be about 50 feet tall. Another beautiful piece is “Dead Dad”, a disturbing sculpture of his father, laying nude, presumably dead, and only 8 x 40 x 15 inches. This is the only piece Ron used his own hair on.

There’s another decent Mueck gallery on the Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art website, which incidentally has a cheesy flash navigation header that I LOVE. Seems a bit much for a museum, but I really do love these little animations.

There’s yet another nice collection of images on the is Creative Pool website.

Of course, a quick Google image search will reveal a comprehensive set of photos of this amazing, amazing body of work.

[I’m not sure who reminded me of this, but thanks.]