About the Exhibition
“The exhibition Real Life: Ron Mueck and Guy Ben-Ner showcases two important voices in contemporary art whose careers the National Gallery of Canada has been following in recent years,” explains Pierre Théberge, Director of the National Gallery of Canada.
Real Life draws connections between two very different artists who share a common interest in a direct, hands-on approach capable of bridging the gap between experience and our reflection on it. In this, neither Ron Mueck nor Guy Ben-Ner veer far away from “real life”– either in artistic process or content – as they work to diffuse the boundaries between art and the everyday. There is a surprising affinity between the meticulous fabrication of Ron Mueck’s highly polished and lifelike sculptures, and Guy Ben-Ner’s seemingly off-the-cuff but actually carefully constructed “home videos,” which often take over a year to make, governed by innumerable hours of editing and the restrictions of working with children. Similarly, Mueck may work for a year or more on a single piece, in his case because he operates mostly without assistants.
