Ron Mueck 25 Years of Sculpture, 1996-2021, the artist’s first exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac, will mark the most comprehensive gallery survey of the internationally acclaimed sculptor to date. From his largest to his smallest works, the exhibition includes Mueck’s most celebrated sculptures from a career spanning two and a half decades, shown alongside new and previously unseen works. His unparalleled eye for physical and emotional detail charts the full spectrum of human experience – from the onset of life in pregnancy and in birth, to its final point in death – with unsettling power.
They share a vulnerability, not only with each other but also with Mueck himself, who draws on his own intensely personal thoughts, emotions and life experiences to produce a register of universal emotions and experiences to which we can all relate. – Jasper Sharp, art historian and curator, whose essay will be published on the occasion of the exhibition
Perhaps the artist’s best-known work, Dead Dad (1996–97) will be on view in the UK for the first time in over 20 years. It was first shown in the Royal Academy’s era-defining exhibition Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection (1997), which was instrumental in establishing the artist’s international reputation. Acquired by Charles Saatchi when first created, the work has since formed part of the Stefan T. Edlis Collection, from which the sculpture is on loan.
