Studio Visit: Ugo Rondinone

Ugo Rondinone has long seen art as a spiritual device, creating spectacular sculptures and installations that teleport viewers into alternate realms.

It is a quality that permeates his studio, located in a converted Romanesque church in Harlem, New York. Purchased in 2011, the artist renovated the space for $4 million, transforming the original architecture—built by Henry Franklin Kilburn in 1887—into a work and living space with five studios for visiting artists as well as two guest apartments.

An avid collector, Rondinone's home features works by artists including Sarah Lucas, Paul Thek, and Peter Halley, with recent acquisitions including large fabric banner works by Matt Mullican and a painting by Tim Rollins and K.O.S.

Downstairs, the church hall offers room to render full-scale maquettes for exhibitions. At the time of our visit, some of the signature elements of Rondinone's three-decade-long career were present, including clawed black branches being used as studies for works in progress, and stone wall reliefs resembling scholar's rocks that have been shown at art fairs—symbols and motifs that the artist explained in a past Ocula Conversation as being drawn from the Romantic movement.

Natural elements such as these frequently take on playful attributes including bright colour, inspiring a sense of childlike wonder, as seen in his iconic 'nuns + monks' series (2020–ongoing), in which limestone models are scaled into polychrome bronze sculptures.

In the artist's solo exhibition a sky . a sea . distant mountains . horses . spring . at Sadie Coles HQ in London last year, stacked watercolour-on-canvas paintings towered in the space while glass horses stood in another gallery, their differently shaded halves coming together to resemble still horizon lines.