Simply titled ''Couple Under An Umbrella'', the striking piece is one of the three new, previously unseen, sculptures currently on view at a solo show surveying recent works by the acclaimed Australian artist Ron Mueck. The exhibition, which will be on view until the end of October 2013, is the first major European show since 2005 dedicated to this UK-based artist known for his large-scale, hyperrealist sculptures. Be it a casually-dressed young couple caught in a pensive moment, a weary-looking mother carrying bagfuls of groceries with her baby strapped to her chest, or a nude, middle-aged woman arching backwards under the weight of the twigs she bears, Mueck’s painstakingly-detailed sculptures appear both ordinary and anything but, which leaves them so very open to interpretation. Eerie and otherworldly, the giant figures seem to be engrossed in their activities, reticent and unaware of visitors’ peering eyes.

Featuring a total of nine mixed-media works completed between 2002-2013, Ron Mueck's solo show at theFondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain is accompanied by an exclusive, specially-commissioned video realised by photographer  Gautier Deblonde. Filmed in Mueck’s North London studio which Deblonde visited on a daily basis during the course of the last four years, '‘Still Life: Ron Mueck at Work’ gives a rare, firsthand account of the famously private artist’s creative process.