Ugo Rondinone
Ugo Rondinone (born 1964) is a Swiss-born mixed-media artist living in New York. His work frequently employs the experiential qualities of the everyday, often reflecting on the boundaries between fiction and reality.[1]
Life & Work
Ugo Rondinone was born in 1964 to Italian parents in the resort town of Brunnen, Switzerland. He moved to Zurich in 1983 to become the assistant to Hermann Nitsch and studied at the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in Wien, from 1986 to 1990. In 1998 he moved to New York City where he continues to live and work in Harlem.[2]
Rondinone emerged onto the international art scene in the 1990s.[3] Many of his pieces coax the viewer into a meditative state like the blurred, brightly colored, concentric rings of his target-shaped paintings;[4] or his strictly black and white landscapes of gnarled trees that seem to bristle with energy.[5] His large rainbow signs are just as enigmatically alluring with their imperative affirmations of “Hell, Yes!” or “Our Magic Hour.” These signs seem to point to some hidden aspect of our reality and history.[6] One sign, “Dog Days Are Over,” presented in 1996 at Zurich's Museum für Gegenwartskunst, proclaims an end to a period of turmoil, but what that period is remains unclear.[7]
In 2013 he showed “Human Nature,” a group of monumental stone figures in Rockefeller Center. They resembled rudimentary robots hewn from the rocks of Stonehenge.
In 2015, Rondinone proposed Seven Magic Mountains, an installation of seven neon stone totems painted in artificially bright yellows, purples and other colors, constructed from car-size stone cut from a Nevada quarry and stacked 32 feet high.[8] The public installation, along Interstate 15 just south of Las Vegas, opened in May 2016, and will remain on display for two years.[9]
Exhibitions
He has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle, Vienna; Museo de Art Contemporaneo, Leon, Spain; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; and Sculpture Center, New York. In 2007, he represented Switzerland in the Venice Biennale. His works are in the collections of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, among others.
External links
- Ugo Rondinone Human Nature at Rockefeller Center organized by Public Art Fund
- Ugo Rondinone's 2005-06 sculptures in Pappajohn Sculpture Park, Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation in Iowa
- Ugo Rondinone Extended Biog and Exhibition information
- Art review by Joseph Nechvatal of Ugo Rondinone's THE THIRD MIND at Le Palais de Tokyo, Paris
- 'if there were anywhere but desert, Wednesday' Kaldor Family Collection, Art Gallery of NSW
- Ugo Rondinone Artist Page at Sommer Contemporary Art Gallery Website
References
- ↑ Ugo Rondinone, 'Primitive' The Common Guild
- ↑ Ugo Rondinone Biography, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, retrieved 04.04.2015
- ↑ </ Ugo Rondinone Biography, New Media Encyclopedia, retrieved 04.04.2015
- ↑ Ugo Rondinone 'Post-History Painting', Pomeranz Collection
- ↑ Ugo Rondinone, 'Temporary Contemporary', Bass Museum of Art
- ↑ Ugo Rondinone, 'Hell Yes' Exhibition, New Museum Digital Archive
- ↑ Ugo Rondinone 'Dog Days Are Over', Migros Museum
- ↑ "Ugo Rondinone's Magic Mountains Bring Color to the Nevada Desert". Format Magazine. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
- ↑ Graham Bowley (April 9, 2015), Splash of color in the desert New York Times.