chicken / man by Ron Mueck is a sculpture of an old man, wearing only his underwear, sitting at a table on which a white chicken is standing. Human and bird stare at each other. The scene, and the smaller-than-life scale of the work, make it seem absurd. Because Mueck’s hyper-real sculptures often depict people in emotionally exposed states, they have been described as psychological portraits. chicken / man was made and acquired by the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū Foundation in 2019, the last of the ‘Five Great Works’ bought to mark each year the Gallery building was closed after the 2010–11 earthquakes.

When displayed, the sculpture is softly lit from above and raised so that visitors can move around it in the gallery space. A stanchion encloses the raised rectangular plinth on which the artwork sits.

The two standout features of this work are its realism and scale. The sculpture is about a third of life size, with the highest part, the man’s head, 86 centimetres above the plinth. Old, white-haired and pale-skinned, the man looks as if he has just sat down or is just about to get up. The hair on the back of his head is flattened slightly, and he has a look of mild irritation on his face with a furrowed brow and downturned mouth. His left arm is extended forward into a fist so that his knuckles slope down to the flat green Formica table-top. His right hand is also balled, but pulled to the edge of the table closest to him. The flexed tendons in his right arm are visible under thin skin. He has a round belly, sagging pectorals and frail-looking limbs. The simple metal-framed chair the man sits on has a retro minty green back and seat. His white y-front underpants mirror the white feathers of the chicken. The bird shares none of the issues that age the man. She stands with her chest proudly out. Her head, with bright red comb and yellow beak, is turned squarely to the man, meeting his gaze. Are these two opponents? They seem frozen in a battle of wills.

chicken / man is constructed from silicone, resin, steel, aluminium, synthetic hair, feathers, various glues and water-based paints. The only clues that these figures are not real are their stillness and size. The man’s bed-hair has led people to wonder if he is waiting for breakfast. The chicken has prompted others to ask what that breakfast might be.

Melbourne-born Ron Mueck had no formal art training. He made toys and puppets for television and screen, including working with Jim Henson on his 1986 film Labyrinth to create, puppet and voice the character Ludo. His first work, when he turned to fine art sculpture in 1996, was a smaller-than-life statue of his naked, deceased father called Dead Dad. Mueck’s sculptures employ vulnerability, poignancy and privacy to emphasise the emotional realities of being human. Whether his figures are toddler- or giant-sized, we feel for them and see ourselves in their forms.