Ron Mueck: Encounter Opens in Sydney with the Artists Largest Exhibition in Australia
In Sydney this weekend, the Art Gallery of New South Wales unveils Ron Mueck: Encounter, a major exhibition dedicated to one of today’s most influential sculptors. Opening on 6 December 2025 and running until 12 April 2026, the show is billed as the largest presentation of Mueck’s work ever seen in Australia, and his first significant solo exhibition in Sydney since 2003. Exclusive to the city as part of the Sydney International Art Series 2025–26, it positions Mueck’s sculptures as a headline cultural event of the summer.
In the lead-up to the opening, the gallery’s exhibition team has been carefully preparing the works for installation — a logistical and conservation challenge given their dramatic shifts in scale, fragile surfaces and intricate detail. Each sculpture demands precise handling and considered placement to sustain the charged atmosphere Mueck is known for. Soon, visitors will be able to step into the world that has been taking shape behind closed doors: a quiet yet powerful environment shaped by presence, emotion and tension.
Bringing together nearly one third of the artist’s total career output, Ron Mueck: Encounter features key works such as Woman with Shopping (2013), Dark Place (2018) and the widely celebrated Couple Under an Umbrella (2013). The exhibition includes loans from public and private collections across Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Mueck’s own collection, underscoring the global reach of his practice.
At the heart of the show is Havoc 2025, a bold new immersive installation created specifically for Sydney. The work features two packs of monumental dogs, frozen on the brink of conflict — an image that is at once mythic and uncomfortably real. Curators describe Havoc 2025 as an ominous, high-intensity space, where towering figures with bristling fur and bared teeth mirror contemporary social anxieties while retaining the psychological subtlety that has defined Mueck’s art for decades.
Presented with the support of Destination NSW and major partner UBS, Ron Mueck: Encounter invites audiences to engage with sculpture on a deeply physical level. Through bodies that are radically scaled up or down, Mueck’s figures expose vulnerability, intimacy and isolation, asking visitors to reconsider their own sense of scale and presence in the world. Tickets are available via the Art Gallery of New South Wales, with timed entry and evening options during the Sydney International Art Series season.
