The making of Pregnant Woman 2002
Queensland Art Gallery, Melbourne St, South Brisbane
March 12 - June 5
Free admission
REVIEW BY LYNDA HANSEN
The first time I heard about Pregnant Woman 2002 was on the lifestyle show Brisbane Extra. Apparently the only reason they included the segment on the program was because it was seen as controversial. I set off the next day to find what all the fuss was about.
Melbourne-born artist Ron Mueck, now based in London, is the individual responsible for the two-and-a-half metre sculpture of a naked woman who is heavily pregnant. Brisbane Extra's host had said: "We cannot show the entire sculpture because this is a family show". The only bits I missed seeing on screen was her breasts and genitalia, covered in a mass of pubic hair.
Mueck started his career as a puppet maker, a special effects artist for film and television and advertising, before entering the art world almost by accident in the mid-1990s. His sculptures have since been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale in 2001. Pregnant Woman 2002, made while Mueck was associate artist at the National Gallery in London, is clearly seen by the international art world as one of his most ambitious works to date.
The sculpture, predominantly made of fibreglass, is at once extraordinarily lifelike, yet hyper-real. Pregnant Woman 2002 is described by the art gallery as a contemporary portrayal of motherhood, and a monument to universal themes of fertility, birth and life. I found the exhibit very empowering and beautifully crafted, and I'd suggest anyone who lives in Brisbane goes to see some "controversial" art before the conservative lobby try to have it closed down.
From Green Left Weekly, April 6, 2005.
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