UGO RONDINONE

Imbued with the weightiness and intrigue of holy people, Rondinone’s nuns + monks have an undeniable presence, bothas individuals and in carefully constructed groupings. These humanoid characters are composed of two elements paintedwith different colours: a large monolithic stone topped by a smaller one to create a bodily form. Placed on concrete pedestals,each sculpture has its own personality, with varying folds, dents, and crags that create wonderfully complex shadows andtextures along their smoothed out, vibrant finishes. Earlier works from this series consisted of larger-than-life figures thatstood massively tall and made of bronze. Here, however, Rondinone has turned his attention to smaller sculptural forms,which appear as votive objects created for solitary connection and prayer. These nuns and monks are the original sculpturesthe artist carved from limestone and used as the basis for larger bronze iterations, and demonstrate the care and precisionin Rondinone’s hand with these precious and intimately-sized works. Walking through the installation in this domestic spaceturned gallery, the viewer is able to approach each sacred personage and form a significant, singular bond with each figureencountered.

In the Mattituck paintings, named for the coastal spit of the North Fork of Long Island where he has a home and studio,Rondinone engages the Romantic sublime to capture the awe-inspiring celestial and oceanic in simplified yet evocativeforms, allowing rich colours to permeate each scene with effective power. From this easterly orientation, the course of thesun and moon is particularly dramatic, as their courses curve above the horizon line. Similar to the artist’s ‘cloud’ and ‘sun’paintings, each artwork title records the day and year of its completion and provides a diaristic memorial for each momentcaptured. Each work is composed using three differing, oftentimes complementary colors, and celebrates the singularmagic of each moment encountered by the artist.

Ugo Rondinone was born in 1964 in Brunnen, Switzerland. He studied at the Universität für Angewandte Kunst in Viennabefore moving to New York in 1997, where he lives and works to this day. His work has been the subject of solopresentations at the Centre George Pompidou, Paris (2003); Whitechapel Gallery ,London (2006) Art Institute of Chicago(2013); Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2014) Palais de Tokyo, 2015, Secession, Vienna 2015, Museum Boijmans VanBeuningen, Rotterdam 2016, MACRO, Rome 2016, Carre D’Art, Nimes 2016, Berkley Art Museum, Berkeley,Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati, Cincinnati 2017, Bass Museum of Art, Miami (2017); Belvedere, Vienna (2021)Tamayo Museum, Mexico City (2022) and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2022), Petit Palais, Paris and Scuola Grande SanGiovanni Evangelista di Venezia, Venice. In 2007 he represented Switzerland at the 52nd Venice Biennale. Forthcomingexhibitions include: The Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, Switzerland, Storm King, New York, The Städel Museum,Frankfurt and The Phillips Collection, Washington.