Mueck's Manipulations.

I am familiar with Chuck Close; he was the painter who did meticulously hyper-real portraits. But Chuck must be perpetually rolling over in his grave, because there is a guy from Australia who has been outdoing him, in 3D, for some time.

Now living in England, Ron Mueck's stunningly real sculptures have been showing in galleries around the world for several years. Using silicone, acrylic, and fiberglass, Mueck crafts oversized and undersized figures of ordinary people. He prefers to make them bigger or smaller than life size because, in his words, 'You see people you own size everyday." The detail is astounding; his figures have realistic body hair, and their skin has a lifelike patina. Each part is anatomically correct.

What does one do when one has achieved such a monumentally hyper-real technical level? I predict he will move on to the animal kingdom. Soon he will be doing two-story tall frogs, reptiles, or insects. He probably will lean towards using creatures lacking body hair, or those that have less than, say, most of the mammals, due to the time needed to stitch each hair on with special punches and needles.

Humanity is consumed by representations of humankind. We will never get enough of gawking at our fellow humans in malls, offices, parks, political debates, fashion shows, the evening news, and sporting events. We like to study the folds and nuances of fellow humans. What will we do when they invent companions, such as those in sci-fi films, who mimic us in every way? Why would a man want a regular woman when he can have a Stepford wife adorned in slinky nighwear waiting for him whenever he needs her, and who would never scold him for being a slob or bad lover? Why would a woman need a man when there are sperm banks for babies, and a well-endowed silicone skinned man who will talk about recipes, dance the tango, drive her around, is able to please all her romantic fantasies, and treat her like a lady twenty-four hours a day?

It will be a blow to the breast augmentation, and erectile disfunction (and penile extention) industries. Surgeons will have to live on a hundred grand a year, poor things.

Mueck may pay the price of working with fiberglass. It is not the best thing to get in your lungs. But he probably knows this. Maybe he will parlay his skill into a line of manikins for store windows. Perhaps we will see his figures in malls that are suffering through this depression. Empty malls are a problem, why not stock them with real looking people?

I will order a Mueck if I don't find a real woman. I will put her in my living room and play her songs on my guitar. I will be like "Lars and the Real Girl" except my gal will be more real looking than me.

But I am joking of course. We need companions who are flawed, because however beautiful we may appear, none of us have perfect bodies, at least in our views. And there is that thing called love that binds people together. And when one is in love, the imperfections are rarely noted, and if they are, they only endear us to the one we love. Quirkiness and witty conversation go a long ways to making a person loveable. Kindness, forgiveness, fidelity, and being commited to someone will take you the rest of the way.

I hope Mueck has found someone who loves him, wrinkles and all.