From Puppeteer to Sculptor: Ron Mueck’s Hyperrealism
In 1996, sculptor Ron Mueck presented the world with a very different version of Pinocchio per the request of—of all people—his mother-in-law. Mueck’s statue depicts the marionette post-human transformation and gives the line “I’m a real boy!” entirely new meaning. As with all the sculptures in Ron Mueck, by National Gallery of Victoria curator David Hurlston, the figure’s realism is simultaneously astonishing and unsettling.