There may be good reasons for the incredibly sparse design of Ron Mueck: Encounter, at the Art Gallery of NSW but I’ve rarely seen a show with so much empty space. We are being asked to accept that Mueck’s detail-perfect, realist sculptures need large walls or entire rooms to themselves to allow us to savour their peculiar intensity.
It’s a plausible idea but the emptiness that surrounds each work is so exaggerated it becomes a distraction rather than a sympathetic mode of presentation. A cynic might argue this is what a gallery does when there’s not enough work to fill the space – in this instance, a mere 14 pieces in the new building the AGNSW likes to call Naala Badu. The Old Woman in Bed (2000/2002), from the AGNSW’s collection, is to be found in the old building (AKA. Naala Nura), sharing a gallery with a suite of Expressionist prints by Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945).
Mueck, born in Melbourne in 1958, but long resident in London, is not a prolific artist. Slow and fastidious in his methods, he cannot be expected to deliver a jam-packed exhibition. Nevertheless, Encounter is an awkward proposition as a paid blockbuster, because many visitors will hesitate to pay $35 to see 14 works in bare white rooms. I’m sorry to make this comparison again, but for $40, the National Gallery of Victoria delivers a massive collection of work by Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo, featuring the most dazzling exhibition design.