Permanent Collection
Ron MUECK
Mueck’s elderly lady is recreated with vivid verisimilitude, from her wrinkled and sagging skin, to her translucent veins and individual strands of hair. The stark contrast of her unrealistic scale, at over four meters, only serves to highlight the oddness of her presence. The Australian artist is known for sculptures capturing glimpses of universal human vulnerability, often in the form of aging or loneliness. Facial expressions that seem at once stern and kind, depending on the angle, and quiet, contemplative poses, in which the figures seem to stare into thin air, encourage the viewer to empathize and imagine.
Photo: Oyamada Kuniya
Courtesy Anthony d’Offay, London
Ron MUECK
Born 1958 in Melbourne, Australia; lives and works in London, UK. After working in children’s television, motion picture special effects and advertising for many years, Mueck attracted a great deal of attention for his tiny and uncanny realistic sculpture Dead Dad, which he made to come to terms with his father’s death. He has had solo exhibitions at the National Gallery (London, 2003) and Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain (Paris, France, 2013), among many others, and his works are in the collections of numerous museums including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (US) and Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (US).
2007
Mixed media
155×110×405 cm
Towada Art Center Permanent Collection Special Event
Special Talk by Charlie Clarke: Ron Mueck , Standing Woman Thursday, April 30 ,2026
On Friday, September 11, 2026, Towada City and the Towada Art Center welcomed Standing Woman as a special resident of the city. Commemorative copies of the Special Certificate of Residence are available from the Tourism Division, Towada City.
Message from the Director
I am delighted that we have welcomed Ron Mueck’s Standing Woman as a special resident of Towada City.
Standing Woman has stood in Towada for 18 years, ever since the Towada Art Center opened in 2008, and is loved by local residents and visitors alike. She is the only work by Mueck on permanent display in Japan and has become a symbol of the art center.
Walking into her room, you are first struck by her scale: she stands more than four meters tall. Up close, the detail surprises you all over again: wrinkled, sagging skin, faint veins beneath it, even individual strands of hair. At first she seems to be an elderly woman caught in an ordinary moment. But as you look at her from different angles and distances, you start to wonder where and when she comes from, what she is looking at, and what she is thinking.
Mueck focuses on everyday moments in the lives of ordinary, unnamed people, each living with their own troubles, and presents them as sculptures at unexpected scales. In doing so, he reminds us of the anxiety and fragility that come with being alive, and at the same time, of how precious life is.
Standing Woman, too, makes us feel how precious and dear life, and the world itself, can be. Now a familiar presence for the people of Towada, she has come to hold a place in the life of each person who meets her.
The art center will close for one year from April 2027 and will reopen in April 2028 for its 20th anniversary year.
I am confident that Standing Woman will remain part of the art center and Towada City for many years to come, and that she will continue to inspire art and culture in Towada.
September 11, 2026, on the occasion of the Special Certificate of Residence Presentation Ceremony
Shikata Yukiko, Director, Towada Art Center
Message from Ron MUECK
Arriving in 2008,Standing Woman has watched quietly as visitors come and go through the rooms of Towada Art Center.
Over almost 20 years she has become part of the fabric of the building.
Granting Standing Woman honorary citizenship of the City of Towada now truly makes Towada her home.
She belongs.
It is a great honour.
Yours sincerely, with grateful appreciation,
Ron Mueck
How to get a "Special Resident Certificate"
Certificates are issued free of charge at the Tourism Division, Towada City Hall (Main Building, 2nd floor). At the counter, ask for a Special Certificate of Residence for Standing Woman.
Size: 7.2 cm (H) × 10 cm (W)
Tourism Division, Towada City(Map)
Address: 6-1 Nishi-Junibancho, Towada, Aomori
Towada City Hall, Main Building, 2nd floor
(about a 5-minute walk from the art center)
Tel: 0176-51-6771
Hours: 8:30 a.m.–5:15 p.m.
* Certificates cannot be collected on weekends, national holidays, or during the year-end and New Year holidays (December 29–January 3), when City Hall is closed.
