After a quarter-century, Dead Dad — nude, ashen, and pitifully half-sized – appears more sad than ever. Ron Mueck's most renowned figure, like a cadaver in a mortuary, sits on its slab, dead and yet so recently alive. Time has darkened its hue and given it a new meaning — this unfortunate bare-forked creature might now be another Covid victim.

At Thaddaeus Ropac, twenty-five years of sculpting isn't a long time. From the liver stains and silver stubble on their forearms and cheeks to the downy hair on their forearms and cheeks, Mueck's meticulously super-real creatures take a long time to create, and there are just nine pieces in this chosen survey.

They range in size from the small Man in Blankets – a large bruiser shrunk down to the size of a baby, snuggled in pink swaddling as if attempting to return to the womb – to the massive skull labeled Dead Weight. Every stage of life sits somewhere in the middle.

Some numbers have already been displayed. Like a modern doubting Thomas, the black youth touched the knife cut in his side with skepticism. The mother laying on her back shortly after giving birth, her hands clinched as if struck or puzzled by the odd newborn on her chest. The elderly couple in their faded swimsuits, shaded by an oversize umbrella from the sun.

This is a story-telling and emotion-filled art form. These evident staging points in our shared life are not designed to perplex you. Mueck's whole topic is humanity, as clearly expressed as his special effects are enigmatic.

You might stare at these faces and wonder how he obtains the red-rimmed tiredness in a woman's eyes, or that blankness in a boy's sleepy expression, while getting and experiencing those sentiments completely.

The illusions are still flawless. The following pictures by Gautier Deblonde show Mueck working on a small maquette or correcting the discoloration of a huge toenail with a little paintbrush. Anatomical toys, yoga posture guides, and try-on models are also available.

From grey fibreglass and coloured polyurethane to the final figure in the gallery, you can witness the evolution of Woman With Shopping.

She clutches two carrier bags loaded with baby wipes and teabags, as well as a (not quite to scale) bottle of cheap sauvignon, Sentinel-like in her Dr Martens and shabby cloak. The infant, who is bundled up against the cold inside its coat, looks up at its fatigued mother, looking for her missing gaze.

But there's a catch: the lady isn't much larger than a little toddler. The tug towards feeling is just too strong and overt.

And, despite their enormity, the most recent paintings in this exhibition turn out to be the smallest. From the depths of a dark room, a large head glowers back at you. It's going to be a fight. Or it would be if the eyes weren't obliquely positioned under the brows. The too-obvious title of a piece appropriate for spectres and Halloween is Dark Place.

The massive skull is made of iron and weighs more than a ton. Whatever it's supposed to symbolize, it seems to be what it is: a hunk of black metal.

This 2021 sculpture is nothing more than an exceptionally huge feat of old-fashioned casting without the benefit of Mueck's outstanding hyperreal art. Even though it is larger than an elephant's cranium, it has practically little effect.

Around 1570, Giovanni Moroni created The Tailor, a magnificent portrait. The tailor raises his eyes from his work, shears in hand, ready to cut the fabric.

We see him, and he sees us: it's a strikingly reciprocal relationship. It has fascinated spectators for generations, and now writer and curator Louis Wise is responding with a modern art display called The Gaze.

A come-hither Moroni, a teasing thumb in the mouth Moroni, and a masturbating Moroni are among the images, sketches, and paintings he possesses. That is to say, the males in these photographs are staring back at you with a same enthralling stare.

A few are staring at each other instead of at you, like in Gilbert Lewis's intriguing picture of a young guy peering through a doorway at another. Some have a striking resemblance to Moroni's darkly attractive tailor. It's an exhibition of looks in both ways.

These are all homosexual guys. Wise thinks that Moroni was a homosexual himself, which is a reasonable assumption. Where there is no documented proof, art history is adamantly opposed to such speculations. But I can see why.

It's not simply Wise's own profound emotional reaction to the painting (and who hasn't fallen in love with a person in a portrait: these are live individuals, frequently shown at their most attractive). It's also because the tailor stands out as practically the only one of Moroni's sitters who isn't a nobleman, academic, or courtier.

He offers the artist a piercingly concentrated glance. Was it love that moved Moroni to paint him?

Thanks to Laura Cumming at The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.