Ugo Rondinone · the poetry of everyday life

Ugo Rondinone · the poetry of everyday life

From 24 June to 18 September 2022, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt presents “Ugo Rondinone: Life Time”, its first exhibition dedicated to the Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone.

Source: Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt · Image: Ugo Rondinone, “Life Time” (rendering), 2019, neon, acrylic glass, translucent sheet, aluminium, Courtesy of the artist and Studio Rondinone.

Born in Switzerland in 1964, but resident in New York since 1998, Ugo Rondinone is best known for his monumental outdoor sculptures, heirs to the Land Art of Smithson and company, such as “Seven Magic Mountains” (2016), or “Liverpool Mountain”, installed in front of Tate Liverpool in 2018. In the Belvedere exhibition, however, the influences come from two distinct and somewhat opposing styles: Minimalism and Hyperrealism.

In a press release, the Schirn explains that Rondinone “adds a poetic dimension to everyday objects and phenomena. In typically Minimalistic arrangements, he puts a tree, a clock, the sun or a rainbow in new contexts by means of repetition, isolation, or reduction, creating atmospheric ambiences”, adding that the exhibition “combines fundamental themes that have shaped the work of the conceptual and installation artist for the past thirty years: time and transience, day and night, reality and fiction, nature and culture. Rondinone has repeatedly referred to the iconography of Romanticism in his works and used quotes from literature and pop culture. The starting point of his multimedia oeuvre is the transformation of the outside world into a subjective, emotional inner world. He develops experiential spaces in which the viewer actually becomes part of the installations and their immersive structures.”

“Ugo Rondinone: Life Time” follows other recent exhibitions by Rondinone in Europe, such as “Ugo Rondinone — nude in the landscape”, which took place earlier this year at Belvedere 21 in Vienna. #2022 #SchirnKunsthalleFrankfurt #theartwolf #UgoRondinone