The kitsch we need

Morgan Meis in The Easel:

Ron Mueck, A Girl, 2006. Installation view from Ron Mueck’s solo show at the Fondation Cartier, Paris, 2023. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. Purchased by Art Fund support, 2007. © Marc Domage

It’s a baby lying on the floor. The eyes and squishy forehead are particularly impressive. There’s a gooey-ness and rawness to the flesh that is particular to newborn babies. I happen to like knobby knees and this baby’s knees are nice and knobby. The new skin on baby knees looks  like it could also be old skin. It is startling, the way that tiny infants can resemble elderly people. There is a shared vulnerability to bodies just coming into the world and bodies soon to make their way back out again.

The sculpture, A Girl, is also quite large. Much larger than an adult human being. The scale is affecting, though it is hard to put one’s finger on exactly why. Maybe it’s that the giant size actually increases the viewer’s experience of fragility. Everything that makes a newborn baby new is magnified.

More here.