Review of “A Girl” by Ron Mueck

Ellaina Brown; 200210600

Ron Mueck’s larger than life installation of “A Girl” is more than just a realistic sculpture

of a baby. Extending over 16 feet in length, this infant demands attention. It is also fresh from

the womb, umbilical cord still taking the place of the yet-to-come belly button. Mueck’s

formalistic, realistic approach brings the viewer to an immediate state of shock and awe, every

gory detail magnified twentyfold. Ron Mueck’s “A Girl” demonstrates exquisite hyper-realism

in the uncanny form of a newborn baby girl so that the viewer considers the true significance of

birth in life.

“A Girl” is at the Mackenzie Art Gallery (Regina) from September 25th, 2010 to January

2nd, 2011. The cross-Canada exhibition is called Real Life. “A Girl” is in the first room of the

exhibition, and its size makes it an obligatory starting piece to the show. It is 1.1 meters high by

1.3 meters wide by 5.0 meters long.

Producing this level of realism on such a scale is a painstaking process. Mueck starts by

making maquettes and sketches to determine the position of the sculpture. He then sculpts a full

size, completely detailed clay figure, followed by a sectioned mold of the clay. Finally, there is a

fiberglass casting in the mold. The result is a series of hollow, fairly maneuverable pieces. The

sections are then permanently fastened to one another, making it an additive sculpture. Each

synthetic hair is put in place one at a time. From hair follicles and skin blemishes to wrinkles and

natural discolorations, no detail is overlooked, and the result is a strikingly realistic three

dimensional portrait.

come alive at any moment. The viewer is left with an anxious feeling of uncertainty because,

although intimately familiar, it is not of this world. Mueck even includes the bloody mucus that
would appear on an infant to further the grotesque, but accurate qualities of the baby,

disqualifying any presumptions that the figure is idealized. The painted skin blotches and vein

coloring furthers the tromp-loi effect, making it difficult for the viewer to restrain from touching

the object. To touch, the sculpture would be smooth and hard, but the fiberglass and matte paint

causes its appearance to be that of skin: supple, soft, and still slimy from afterbirth. Her fists are

clenched, and her face strained as she rests naked upon a cold white platform, giving the viewer

further discomfort. This presents an incongruence of emotion for the viewer: sadness and angst.

It creates an uneasy feeling of wanting to flee from the creature, but one’s instincts make the

viewer want to care for it. Ron Mueck has done nothing less than create a perfectly life-like

replication in a much larger than life form and by doing so raises radically different emotions

from the viewer than if one were to see the baby in a merely life size re-creation. His creative

decisions have great purpose, forcing the viewer to consider birth in a new, much more real

sense.

The space is also interesting. The sculpture is placed in one of the largest rooms in

Saskatchewan, so it is not the baby that is out of place; the large room fits the baby easily.

Rather, it is the viewers that are the intruders, not the child. The large room adds to the sensation

that the viewers are out of place and the baby should be looked at as a realistic form, not as a

'freak of nature', as many might feel without such a space surrounding her.

The baby should resonate as familiar for the viewer, but there is no denying the feeling of

absurdity regarding the object. It results in many questions. Babies should be precious, gentle,

little gifts, but none of those descriptions register here. With this gargantuan infant, the viewer

can more accurately view the reality of birth, or at least consider the other elements of bringing

life into the world. Humans come into the world kicking and screaming, covered in blood and

mucus, demanding to be fed, nurtured and held; yet they are helpless. The weight of this sized
object represents that a child puts a large burden on those who choose to raise it. Birth is not

peaceful and quiet, but very painful and immensely intrusive, but even when we see birth for all

it is, can we still not find the beauty in it? “A Girl” is more than just a realistic magnification of a

newborn. It is posing a question: “What do you think of me: absurd, disgusting, helpless, even

wrong?” Feelings and emotions are present when viewing the piece which appears to point out

that humanity sugarcoats reality.

“Dead Dad”, another work of Mueck, gives a similar opportunity to look at life. Both

“Dead Dad” and “A Girl” were treated with the same care to detail, but “Dead Dad” is fragile

and diminutive, lying just over a foot in length. He appears quite emotionless, but peaceful. Both

of these pieces are precise depictions of Mueck’s family members, suggesting that the scale

represents his response to both the death of his father and the birth of his child. Death is quiet,

lonesome and insignificant, while birth is the beginning of so very much. Birth is the beginning

of opportunity, burden, achievement, revulsion and beauty. Birth is large and loud. However,

there is a clear connection between the two pieces and what they represent. Both are naked and

exposed to the world, allowing the world to make judgments upon them -- and the world does

judge. The world judges what someone has done and what they will do. The world judges what

they are, what they have left behind and what they might become.

The question remains; can people truly see something simply for what it is, or are we

destined to always add our own ideas of how things ought to be, and thereby become closed-

minded? One might be inclined to say that Ron Mueck merely enlarged an element of real life,

but this overlooks the fact that those who view “A Girl” will be compelled to consider the deeper

truths of reality in birth.