RON MUECK (b. 1958) PINOCCHIO fiberglass, ha

Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist

Exhibited
LONDON, Hayward Gallery, SPELLBOUND: ART AND FILM, February 22 May 6, 1996, n.p. (exhibited alongside paintings by Paula Rego)
LONDON, Royal Academy of Arts, September 18-December 28, 1997
BERLIN, Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, September 30, 1998-January 17, 1999 and NEW YORK, Brooklyn Museum of Art, October 2, 1999-January 9, 2000, SENSATION: YOUNG BRITISH ARTISTS FROM THE SAATCHI COLLECTION, p.215, no. 66
LONDON, The Saatchi Gallery, ANT NOISES AT THE SAATCHI GALLERY: PART I, DAMIEN HIRST, SARAH LUCAS, RON MUECK, CHRIS OFILI, JENNY SAVILLE, RACHEL WHITEREAD, April 20-August 20, 2000, n.n., n.p., (illustrated)
BERLIN, Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, RON MUECK, September 10-November 2, 2003, pp. 10 and 68 (illustrated)

Literature
J. McEwen, "Something Disturbing in Silicone," THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, February 18, 1996 A. Vinnicombe and R. Williams, eds., SENSATION, YOUNG BRITISH ARTISTS FROM THE SAATCHI COLLECTION, LONDON, 1997, p. 214, no. 66 Saatchi Gallery, eds., THE NEW NEUROTIC REALISM, LONDON, 1998, n.p. (illustrated)
R. Cork, S. Kent and J. Barnbrook, YOUNG BRITISH ART: THE SAATCHI DECADE, LONDON, p. 383, (illustrated)
J. Cape, ed., 100–THE WORK THAT CHANGED BRITISH ART, LONDON, 2003, p. 156, no. 75 (illustrated)
H. Bastian, ed., RON MUECK,OSTFILDERN-RUIT,2003, pp. 10 and 68 (illustrated)
S. Greeves and C. Wiggins, RON MUECK, LONDON, 2003, p. 42 (illustrated)
S. Tanguy, "The Progress Bigman, A Coversation with Ron Mueck," SCULPTURE, July/August 2003, vol. 22, no. 6

I NEVER MADE LIFE-SIZE FIGURES BECAUSE IT NEVER SEEMED INTERESTING. WE MEET LIFE-SIZE PEOPLE EVERYDAY.
Ron Mueck quote in an interview with Sarah Tanguy, SCULPTURE, Vol. 22, no. 6

PINOCCHIO by Ron Mueck came into the world as an interloper of sorts, bridging the gap between model and art, between professional expertise and artistic calling. The work remains so emblematic because it was the artist's first exhibited piece, so wonderfully provocative and innocent, we can delight in the fact that this one sly little boy became the catalyst that launched Mueck's career. PINOCCHIO was first exhibited in 1996 as a part of the Spellbound exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London. The work was created as a model for Mueck's mother-in-law, renowned British artist Paula Rego. It's execution is so seamless that it is easy to imagine the initial reaction to this little boy in y-front briefs peering out from the space between Rego's massive pastel works, cavorting with the viewer. Truly a brilliantly conceived model, it is testament to this one work's influence that only a year later Mueck's work DEAD DAD was included in the Sensation tour and was quickly followed by among many others, brilliant installations at the Millenium Dome in London in 2002 and the Venice Bienale in 2001, and solo-exhibitions at the Hirshorn Musuem at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. in 2002 and the National Gallery in Australia in 2003.

The conflicts apparent between the realism of the sculptures and their dramatic scale shifts make Mueck's pieces enigmatic and undeniably magical. So unbelievably life-like, we can imagine these figures coming to life, moving around in Mueck's land of the phantasmagoric and the uncanny. It is a space where flesh puckers pink with life, where hairs are caught on end, and expression and scale exude an eerie confidence. This convergence keeps the viewer in the fugacious moment caught between the absurd and the essential. The viewer is not entranced however by the qualities of expressed realism, but rather the transporting qualities that vault the artwork beyond any strict sculptural oeuvre.

As implied in the title, the comparison to Gepetto of the "Pinocchio" story is indeed incredibly apt. As the son of two toy makers, a love of boundless experimentation with material and a passion to animate the inanimate is undeniable. With this work we can Mueck's sheer delight in being able to leap from the functional (albeit expertly realized and professional) technical model making and animatronics of his career to a realm of personal expression. Pinocchio becomes and is the emblamatization of the master craft skill at it's most realized joined with artistic freedom. Although this work marked only the beginning of Mueck's career, all the genius and play is encapsulated, pulsating through this tiny figure, the Pygmalion of artistic skill set to light the world afire

The impish delight amazingly expressed in the posture and sly smile of the figure so effectively transmutes itself onto our own mode of behavior around Mueck's art objects. The scale shift opposes the immediate reaction to realism and causes the viewer to address both the art object and the way the body enters and experiences the work. We move slowly and contemplatively around Mueck's objects, in this case as a Brobdingnagdian observer. Despite this unfamiliar scale, the technical virtuosity of the artist combined with the immensely personal soft and naked figures the work is astoundingly approachable, agreeable. So expertly hyper real, the works through their master skill in showing life, pulsating with familiarity Mueck opens up the viewer into the realm of magic and of the uncanny and provides them with a wholly new and fresh vantage point.