Ron Mueck is today an internationally renowned artist, but in 1997 he was a complete stranger when he made his debut in the art world in the famous exhibition at the Royal Academy Sensation: Young British Artists From the Saatchi Collection. On that occasion his sculpture Dead Dad - although surrounded by works by already famous artists such as Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and the Chapman brothers - made the visiting public gasp in wonder and launched him into the international contemporary art scene. Yet Mueck was not only not an unknown artist, but he was even self-taught. His is a story of an Australian born boy who grew up in a family doll factory and who had an apprenticeship with Jim Henson, the creator of the famous animated puppets, the Muppets. Today his hyper-realistic sculptures, gigantic and intimate at the same time, are housed in the most important collections and museums in the world. The one at the Cartier Foundation is the third exhibition that Mueck brings to Paris where the artist continues a dialogue started in 2005 and 2013. Of his corpus of 48 works created to date, Mueck has exhibited over a third of them at the French foundation. After Paris, the exhibition will continue its international journey in Milan at the Triennale in the winter of 2024.
