Mueck at the Fondation Cartier

The Fondation Cartier makes a point of following the work of their artists. Australian sculptor Ron Mueck returns to the Fondation Cartier eight years after his first exhibition and brings three never seen before works.

There’s flesh. Lots of it. Where Rodin hacked off chunks of rough stone, Mueck finishes his figures with microscopic precision down to the last eyelash. Self-taught, Mueck started his career as a puppeteer and model maker. From his small studio in London, the work has to be sometimes assembled in situ due to the monumental scale of the space it demands.  Scale is a medium,  shrinking and enlarging the human form, until it makes us a little uncertain of our own size. Mask II, for example,  commands attention in the manner of a fallen colossus– a gigantic sleeping head made in the artist’s likeness in pigmented polyester resin and fiberglass.

“Even if your main interest isn’t in contemporary sculpture, Mueck’s work is accessible,” says Grazia Quaroni, Italian art critic and writer who is both the exhibition curator and in charge of the collection for this institution as well as associate professor of art at the Sorbonne. “It is approachable because of its simplicity. It is figurative but doesn’t give us too much information about time,  fashion or social context.  It is neither of today, nor of yesterday, neither rich nor poor. There are features recognizable from your family, your father, your aunt, someone you know or even yourself in the past or the future. There is something that resonates with us, perhaps a fear, a vulnerability of the human condition, how fragile we become as time passes. There is something of all humanity in his work.”

While the response is different for each one of us, it is hard to remain indifferent. The work demands attention not just for its size and minute detail,  but also for its empathy—a bond of gratitude for helping us look at subjects we’d sooner turn away from.

 

Mueck at the Fondation Cartier

Update: Due to its popularity, this event’s original end date of September 29th has been prologued until October 27th, 2013.

Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain

261, Bd Raspail, Paris 14th

Daily from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Open Tuesday evenings until 10 p.m. Closed Mondays

9,50 €

01 42 18 56 50