big ol' people

I came across an interesting link the other day on fark; it's a gallery (in russian haha) for this artist, Ron Mueck. He sculpts hyper-realistic people.. which we've all seen before - usually, hyper realism is cool for about five minutes in a gimmicky sort of way, but once the awe over sheer technical skill wears off, this sort of art often loses it's appeal to me. I would lump this stuff in with photorealism in painting; if it's so perfect, exact, and dehumanized that it looks just like the original photo, then it might as well be a photo and there's not much point in making a painting or a sculpture. This guy, however, is making me think twice.

Not only are his subjects really interesting characters to begin with, as opposed to a lot of the bland, 'everyday people' hyperreal sculpture I've seen out there, but he flips the script on you with the scale issue. Some of these people are freaking giants, and some of them are downright gnomey. And when you toss in the mad science this guy has with the realism factor, it's disconcerting to say the least. I really like this stuff - I bet it's amazing in person. Here are a few links: the russian gallery, wikipedia, flickr