Project Name
Couple Under An Umbrella
Posted in
Sculpture
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Project NameCouple Under An UmbrellaPosted inSculpture

Dressed in a plain, navy one-piece swimming suit, a short-haired elderly woman is sitting beneath a colour-blocked sun umbrella, affectionately contemplating her male companion whose head rests peacefully on her thigh. Frozen in time and shaded from the sun, the anonymous pair could easily be enjoying a leisurely day on the beach but instead, their pale, motionless bodies rest atop the concrete floor of the Jean Nouvel-designed pavilion at the  Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, France.
 
 

Couple Under An Umbrella, 2013. Matériaux divers, 300 x 400 x 500 cm (environ), Courtesy Caldic Collectie, Wassenaar.photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

Couple Under An Umbrella, 2013. Matériaux divers, 300 x 400 x 500 cm (environ), Courtesy Caldic Collectie, Wassenaar.
photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

Couple Under An Umbrella, 2013. Matériaux divers, 300 x 400 x 500 cm (environ), Courtesy Caldic Collectie, Wassenaar.photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

Couple Under An Umbrella, 2013. Matériaux divers, 300 x 400 x 500 cm (environ), Courtesy Caldic Collectie, Wassenaar.
photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

Simply titled ''Couple Under An Umbrella'', the striking piece is one of the three new, previously unseen, sculptures currently on view at a solo show surveying recent works by the acclaimed Australian artist Ron Mueck. The exhibition, which will be on view until the end of October 2013, is the first major European show since 2005 dedicated to this UK-based artist known for his large-scale, hyperrealist sculptures. Be it a casually-dressed young couple caught in a pensive moment, a weary-looking mother carrying bagfuls of groceries with her baby strapped to her chest, or a nude, middle-aged woman arching backwards under the weight of the twigs she bears, Mueck’s painstakingly-detailed sculptures appear both ordinary and anything but, which leaves them so very open to interpretation. Eerie and otherworldly, the giant figures seem to be engrossed in their activities, reticent and unaware of visitors’ peering eyes.

Ron Mueck | Making-of de l'exposition. Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, 2013. 
Directed by Olivier Lambert et Thomas Salva / Lumento.

photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

Featuring a total of nine mixed-media works completed between 2002-2013, Ron Mueck's solo show at theFondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain is accompanied by an exclusive, specially-commissioned video realised by photographer  Gautier Deblonde. Filmed in Mueck’s North London studio which Deblonde visited on a daily basis during the course of the last four years, '‘Still Life: Ron Mueck at Work’ gives a rare, firsthand account of the famously private artist’s creative process. 

Still Life: Ron Mueck at Work - Short Edition. Exposition Ron Mueck, Fondation Cartier, 2013. 
Directed by Gautier Deblonde.

Ron Mueck’s Studio, January 2013 © Ron Mueck.Photo © Gautier Deblonde.

Ron Mueck’s Studio, January 2013 © Ron Mueck.
Photo © Gautier Deblonde.

Ron Mueck’s Studio, January 2013 © Ron Mueck.Photo © Gautier Deblonde.

Ron Mueck’s Studio, January 2013 © Ron Mueck.
Photo © Gautier Deblonde.

photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

Ron Mueck’s Studio, October 2012 © Ron Mueck.Photo © Gautier Deblonde.

Ron Mueck’s Studio, October 2012 © Ron Mueck.
Photo © Gautier Deblonde.

Woman with Sticks, 2009 Mixed media. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth © Ron Mueck. Photo Courtesy Hauser & Wirth, London.Exhibition Ron Mueck, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, April 16 › Sept. 29, 2013.

Woman with Sticks, 2009 Mixed media. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth © Ron Mueck. Photo Courtesy Hauser & Wirth, London.
Exhibition Ron Mueck, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, April 16 › Sept. 29, 2013.

Ron Mueck’s Studio, November 2008 © Ron Mueck.Photo © Gautier Deblonde.

Ron Mueck’s Studio, November 2008 © Ron Mueck.
Photo © Gautier Deblonde.

Woman with Sticks, 2009. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth. © Ron Mueck. Photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento, pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

Woman with Sticks, 2009. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth. © Ron Mueck.
Photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento, pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

photo © Thomas Salva / Lumento pour la Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2013.

Drift, 2009. Mixed media. Private Collection. © Ron Mueck. Photo courtesy of Anthony d’Offay, London and Hauser & Wirth.Exhibition Ron Mueck, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, April 16 › Sept. 29, 2013.

Drift, 2009. Mixed media. Private Collection. © Ron Mueck. Photo courtesy of Anthony d’Offay, London and Hauser & Wirth.
Exhibition Ron Mueck, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, April 16 › Sept. 29, 2013.

Mask II, 2001. Mixed media. Anthony d’Offay, London. © Ron Mueck. Photo courtesy of Anthony d’Offay, London.Exhibition Ron Mueck, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, April 16 › Sept. 29, 2013.

Mask II, 2001. Mixed media. Anthony d’Offay, London. © Ron Mueck. Photo courtesy of Anthony d’Offay, London.
Exhibition Ron Mueck, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, April 16 › Sept. 29, 2013.

Ron Mueck's Solo Exhibition At Fondation Cartier

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