98. RON MUECK: A SPACE BETWEEN IMPLICATION AND APPLICATION.

‘En Garde’, Thaddaeus Ropac - LONDON. Photographed by Junzhe Yang

Ron Mueck, En Garde, 2023. Mixed media. 285 × 480 × 530 cm. Thaddeaus Ropac London. Image: Junzhe Yang for M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN).

An impression of a moment sustained forever. An impossible depiction of a split second where a tryptic of statues, a pack of killers - form a singular spectacle of terror which is made visually louder due to a scale that dwarfs the viewer. Freezing our immediate response and confusing our instincts. 

Immediately these hormone-free beings create a chemical reaction in the humans who view them. The heart races and adrenaline surges to what we see. Is this the end? And then a split second later we know it is all an illusion. Ron Mueck has tricked us again.

As with any near escape, the moments after become more, our footsteps lighter, the air fresher. We have survived. Leaving from where we came, through that doorway from which we entered, we return to our lives somehow changed by what we have witnessed or what we think we have witnessed and yet bury the experience within the many other near misses of surviving.

Mueck explores a territory which many have trespassed before him, from Louise Bourgeois's multiple Mamon sculptures which tower cathedral-like above our heads. Even Michaelangos' David, whose giant foreshortened body stands imposing and impossible. All tell part of their stories and testify to terrify as they loom high above us, casting their shadows on the untold narratives they suggest. Of battling Goliath and of the unthinkable hatching of giant arachnid eggs... The furthering of a future of unknowns is all the more unnerving than the forms of those depicted. For the imagination is the fertile ground of such nightmares to be sustained. And as Muecks' pack of ferocious guard dogs - permanently en guard suggest - the real fear is in the implication not the application.

Is this what fear looks like? Skin not of the fathomable but of the mechanical? A surface familiar as if fallen to softly form a fur as satin which glides as a landscape viewed from afar. An application to form an essence - silent and without patination ——- as a machine created for a singular purpose - a life as a weapon. These forms fascinate - seemingly rendered as a flat silhouette and yet subtle variation invites the eye to absorb these god-like depictions - Reminiscent of an imagined Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the one-way gates of Hades - allowing the dead to enter but not to leave. Mueck’s pack of poised Dobermanns similarly appear to have no mercy as they study the single doorway of their gallery corner. Their blank eyes are reminiscent of ancient statues whose irises - now blind from wear - their carved sockets permanently painted open - never to close, forever on alert.

The artist keeps the audience unaware of their motivations - leaving few clues to follow, gallery instructions inform of traditional etiquette to not touch, and a didactic text reads 'mixed media'. Both statements contribute to the viewers' state of confusion - Are we too part of this media? Along with the room, the doorway, even the watchful assistant? - We are all watching each other. And yet the work itself, its six eyeballs - blank and rendered blind in the same material that coats its body, suggests a shadow, a scenery - to be viewed from afar. As a folly on a horizon suggesting dominance of territory. And so 'En Guard' manipulates within the experience of viewing. A proposition to react by making a choice - a reduction of options to fight or flee, and both seem futile when your opponents overwhelm to such impossible proportions. And yet the open doorway provides a glimmer of hope.

Ron Mueck, En Garde, 2023. Mixed media. 285 × 480 × 530 cm. Thaddeaus Ropac London. Image: Junzhe Yang for M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN).

Within the installations' heightened momentary state, there is also a gentility - even a vulnerability. Within the gracious poise of the animals depicted, within the curvature of anatomies rendered perfect in realisation as if formed by a divine force. No sense of human hand is implied through production, and yet the satin luster of these bodies invites caress. Within the human response to this frozen atmosphere, where viewers tip-toe into this gallery stage as to not disturb the giants ahead. To tentatively circle the work is to enter another space - as to trespass into the work itself, as to view the stage from behind the curtain, and see the created world as scenery and the faces of the audience as fools. Are we now to become the fourth player within this spectacle, to mirror what we believe to be true? To stand with these poised killers? Are we also to stare into that empty doorway expectant of the impending?

The palpable sense of momentum to experience an event - materialised not as we witness but as we imagine? - Are we in fact viewing a proposition? Where props stand in place of realities? Fashioned to frighten, created to control... Why have we chosen to be entertained by such terrors?

Ron Mueck, En Garde, 2023. Mixed media. 285 × 480 × 530 cm. Thaddeaus Ropac London. Image: Junzhe Yang for M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN).

Ron Mueck, En Garde Thaddeaus Ropac London - Until 2 April 2025.

Special thanks Junzhe Yang.