Ugo Rondinone

Vita and reputation of the artist

Swiss-born Ugo Rondinone (*1964, Brunnen) studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna from 1985-90. He lives and works in New York. Ugo Rondinone's work can be categorized as conceptual art. Rondinone works with a wide variety of media, including painting, drawing and graphics, photography, video, sculpture and installations. His public installations at Rockefeller Plaza in New York, in the Nevada desert near Las Vegas or in the park at Versailles have become particularly well known. His works have been and continue to be shown internationally in solo exhibitions, for example at the Center Pompidou in Paris, the Kunsthalle Hamburg, the Kunsthalle Wien, the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt am Main and the MoMa New York.

"Ugo Rondinone is a world star whose works are equally appreciated at biennials and art fairs" - judges art critic Catrin Lorch (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 11.08.2022).

The themes of Rondinone's art

Ugo Rondinone's central themes include the examination of space and time, eternity and transience as well as nature and culture or artificiality. Many of the works are poetic or playful and humorous. Rondine often avoids creating overly complex art that is difficult for the viewer to comprehend, instead aiming to create accessible art that the viewer can easily enter into a dialog with.

"The energy of art is that you can spend time with yourself." - Ugo Rondinone

Ugo Rondinone's well-known 6-part edition work "Stars"

An impressive total work of art
Ugo Rondinone's "Stars" edition is a total work of art consisting of 6 works - together they form an impressive format measuring approx. 2 m high x 2.1 m wide.

A rarity!
The "Stars" are among the artist's best-known edition works. Created in 2009, only 33 copies of the edition were quickly sold out. Occasionally, copies of the set of 6 appear sporadically, but it is rare for a set to be offered in its entirety, as conceived by the artist.

Not a photograph - but an illusion
The "Stars" works are black lithographs on which we see white dots and spots, both large and small, reminiscent of stars, as well as delicate blurs that give the impression of wafts of mist. At first, one thinks of a photograph of a starry sky. But this impression is deceptive.

The perfect, "invented" night
The works were created by working with paint and imprints of sand and small stones, which Ugo Rondinone used to form the stars and the secondary clouds. What we see is not a real photographic image of the night sky, but an impressive illusion - a perfect, "invented" night.

Meditation on time, eternity and transience
Since the 1980s, a point of reference in the artist's work has been German Romanticism, which was dedicated to the relationship between human existence and the sublimity of nature. It was in this context that Rondinone began to create works on nature.

Rondinone's "Stars" stand in this context. They are a meditation on the cosmos and time, on eternity and transience. They encourage us to reflect on our own existence.

A feeling of stillness and peace
Looking up at the night sky and the stars - is it an escape into distant unknown worlds, or does it make us feel humble in the face of the big picture? Either way, with the almost infinite nocturnal space that Ugo Rondinone opens up to us here, the artist impressively succeeds in creating a special feeling of stillness and peace.

► Rondinone's works are shown internationally in group and solo exhibitions - for example at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Kunsthalle Hamburg, the MoMa New York and most recently at the Kunsthalle Lucerne.