when visiting the aros art museum in aarhus, it’ll be difficult to oversee boy: boy at aros, a giant sculpture of a squatting, crouching, young boy measuring almost 14 feet in height and weighs 1’000 lbs. back in 2016, boy made part of the exhibition “no man is an island – the satanic verses” and occupied the northern end of the museum’s special exhibitions foyer at aros. today, boy has become one of the landmarks of the aros aarhus art museum.
about the creator and his work. (exerpts from aros.dk):
ron mueck created boy in 1999. it took the artist eight months to progress from a 40 cm high clay maquette to the present almost five metre high sculpture cast in glass fibre. the figure is executed with astonishing attention to detail: the surface of the skin, for instance, is utterly convincing with veins and hair follicles clearly marked. this hyperrealism makes the boy at once a living and compelling presence and yet alien and unreal. ron mueck’s boy is a major addition to aros’ collection of international contemporary art. with its highly realistic representation of body, the work inscribes itself into the neo-realist tradition, which moves from 1970s’ names such as duane hanson, claes oldenburg and robert gober through to jeff koons in the 1980s.
it may be noted that the figure’s crouching posture draws inspiration from the australian aborigines, vigilantly scanning the plain for game.
© 2019 – oliver haas-jensen, all rights reserved