Entertainment

Scaling up Ron Mueck's Irish debut at The MAC

Ron Mueck's monumental piece In Bed (2005). Picture by Hugh Russell.
Ron Mueck's monumental piece In Bed (2005). Picture by Hugh Russell. Ron Mueck's monumental piece In Bed (2005). Picture by Hugh Russell.

QUESTIONS of scale dominate Ron Mueck's superb exhibition at The MAC. It's his first show in Ireland, celebrates the arts centre's 10th birthday, and is a big deal.

As Mueck's thought-provoking work proves in the galleries, big is beautiful, in the famous monumental super-realistic sculpture of a woman In Bed – but small is impressive too.

There is a portrait in the Tall Gallery, maybe two-feet high, of a boy pointing to his chest where there is a savage knife cut. Titled Youth (2009-11), oddly it is almost beautiful, the young man's expression not pained but questioning.

Some spectators found the sculptures of all sizes unnerving. The artist's style belongs to super-realism, so very life-like and convincing in the manner of a photograph. However, I picked up a slightly spiritual content, especially in Dead Dad, the piece that made Mueck's reputation in 1997.

The figure, based on the sculptor's own father, lies on the floor with a view of St Anne's Cathedral through the window behind. He is naked with the palms of his hands almost Christ-like. The hairs on his head have been individually placed. Noted artist Colin Davidson, in attendance in the press preview crowd, agreed and related large medieval religious sculpture to some of Mueck's output.

Ron Mueck started out as a model maker working in TV and advertising. A contributor to the infamous Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy alongside shocking work by the likes of the Chapman brothers (who portrayed Goya's atrocities in cartoon style), Mueck received instant acclaim.

The shock in Mueck's work isn't so much the shock of the new as the shock of the oldest story in existence, the human condition. When you walk round Mother and Child (2003), this time scaled-down, and see where we all began via the newborn, you're moved. It's Madonna-ish but certainly not idealised. The mother looks tired, completed, with baby and umbilical cord trailing across her stomach. You aren't surprised to learn Mueck apparently witnessed the birth of his children.

Elsewhere, in Dark Place (2018) we see a troubled face emerge from the shadows illustrating angst via haunted eyes and an unsmiling expression.

Moving upstairs to the Upper Gallery, you're confronted by the gargantuan Woman in Bed. Head tilted, alone for the moment, she looks as if she might adopt a roguish or flirtatious expression at some point.

Unlike Egyptian or Eastern European oversized sculptures, this isn't about aggrandisement. Mueck told me he chooses the scale of individual sculptures by instinct. He makes pencil sketches of different sizes before wax maquettes, tends not to over-analyze and works with whatever scale "feels right". The bedroom scene, he says, reminded him of being a child with his much larger parents, then a parent with his small children. It's about working out where we fit in in the jigsaw.

And although this woman is monumental, she has the power without being godlike. She is simply real.

Smaller is the nude figure in Woman with Sticks (2009-10) where the symbolism could be the human burden or a harsher comment on her existence. Is she winning? It's hard to tell.

Although the nicely produced programme talks about Australian-born Mueck's figures' ordinariness, it's their universality, alongside the courage of carrying on, that we recognise.

:: Ron Mueck at The MAC runs until November 20. Entrance is free, £5 donation is suggested