September 25, 2010: Yes, Sir, That's Mueck's Baby ...

But whatever you do, don't put a picture of it on a bus in Calgary.

Calgary Transit has rejected a Glenbow Museum advertising campaign showing a sculpture of a naked newborn baby.

Senior managers made the decision after reviewing a photo of the sculpture, said spokeswoman Theresa Keddy.

(article from CBC)

Calgary Transit did offer a compromise. You can put a picture of a bloody, naked, pretend baby on a bus, but only above the pupik.

If you don't know what is a pupik, ask richlevy or consult your copy of Leo Rosten's The Joys of Yiddish.

What I thought was particularly interesting about this series of photos is that it's showing what you don't usually see ... the installation of the piece.

Plastic wrap is not a toy.

We've featured Ron Mueck's work before as an IOTD, back in 2004. I don't think that piece is quite as exciting. There's something disturbing about a wrinkly, bloody, just extruded baby girl.

Someday she will be a teenager and will do things like asking for the car keys or going on dates. With boys.

The other other white meat.

You reckon they're preparing to slow roast it over a low fire?

How is That art?

It's a model of something real. It's not art any more than a photo of a chair or a plastic cow in front of a feed store is.

Ummmm.


No.

Is that a slice of whole wheat bread under the head in the first picture?

SPUCK;684876 wrote:

How is That art?

It's a model of something real. It's not art any more than a photo of a chair or a plastic cow in front of a feed store is.

OK, let's don't start that discussion again.

No let's! This is definitely art and it evokes much emotion and complicated thought.

Damn. I just thought it looked amazingly creepy.

Cow orker got these in his email. He's a fine artist, which is great, when a patient challenges his credentials, he shrugs and says, "I have a bachelor of fine arts."

Creepy is an excellent description.

Is the vagina that came out of part of the exhibit? Cuz THAT would be one scary show!

I think as a piece of art, the head of the baby draped in plastic is way more arty than the whole thing assembled. And I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

The head wrapped in plastic and the full-body baby are different pieces. Look at the scale difference. The plastic-wrapped head is 7-8 feet tall, the horizontal head is half that...

I've found baby heads usually swell when I wrap them in plastic, of course severed heads, not so much.

Sheldonrs;684954 wrote:

Is the vagina that came out of part of the exhibit? Cuz THAT would be one scary show!

I think they just put some hair around a loading dock door for that.

Clodfobble;684980 wrote:

The head wrapped in plastic and the full-body baby are different pieces. Look at the scale difference. The plastic-wrapped head is 7-8 feet tall, the horizontal head is half that...

I completely missed that. I was wondering why the baby's expression looked so different from a different perspective.

Very clever Clodfobble.

Proof.

The Glenbow didn't think it would be appropriate to take the sculpture out of context, she said. So they decided to use an image from a different sculpture, called Head of a Baby, which is a huge close-up of a newborn infant's head. The ad was approved and the transit campaign started Monday.