Ugo Rondinone, Mentor Reiffers Art Initiatives 2024

"Lately the ever-versatile artist Ugo Rondinone has focused with a certain steadiness on figurative sculpture — without, as usual, repeating himself. There have been life-size sculptures cast in wax from real people; blobbish nine-foot-high heads in clay; wall reliefs of masklike faces in black rubber. Now Mr. Rondinone has gone decidedly natural, if not primitive, creating a large clan (37) of figures from bluestone found in upstate New York, slightly flattened and stacked in a very raw way. Like real people, they are all different and all the same. Ranging from 2 1/2 feet tall to nearly 7 feet tall, they stand in loose rows on pedestals and among walls, all of which have been given a concrete skim coat. The result is quite striking, to say the least — something between a regiment of tomb guardians and an incredibly chic outdoor installation. There is also the suggestion of a factory showroom of mass-produced garden fixtures. (They might seem forlorn without their brethren.) The titles are similar tongue-in-cheek contradictions. Under the overall banner of “Soul,” the individual sculptures are titled according to different emotional states — “The Contented,” “The Considerate,” “The Keen” — as in (one assumes) “The Contented” Soul, “The Keen” Soul, and so on. At first it’s interesting to try to discern the emotion assigned each figure. Does the right leg of “The Keen” bend slightly in a way that suggests avidity or acuity? Does “The Certain” really seem more certain than “The Thrilled,” or vice versa? Perhaps Mr. Rondinone is spoofing the very idea of emotional expression, reminding us that we read as much into most artworks as we extract from them."

"Every work in Ugo Rondinone’s distinctive oeuvre is imbued with emotion—a collection of intriguing ideas, bearing an infinite multitude of meanings exceptionally configured in ever-changing spaces. Regardless of the medium, his art cultivates a sense of wonder in its viewers, tantalizing them through a poetic filter and inviting them to themselves become part of the experience. At the unveiling of his new exhibition at the Petit Palais in Paris, coinciding with Paris+ par Art Basel, we had the rare opportunity to witness and listen to his wisdom.

Ugo Rondinone simply does not miss. If there’s one thing that the New York-based artist does best, it’s to always leave one entranced and visually awakened. We are no stranger to his incredible ability to envelop spaces and all who encounter them— we have been staggered by his works’ scale in Venice, just a few months ago. And yet, he never fails to surprise us. Last week was no exception. For his latest exhibition in Europe, Rondinone transformed the grandiose space of the Petit Palais—home to the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts—into an emotional world for visitors to witness and engage with. Ugo Rondinone is an expert in evoking emotion, leaving one entranced and visually awakened. The artist, originally hailing from Switzerland, is an expert in evoking emotion, and has been since starting his poetic and eclectic career decades ago. Excellent at drawing from a young age, he picked up the interest for art on his own, extending his devotion to the contemporary realm by attending art school in Vienna and working in galleries. Today his work is featured in some of those same galleries—and in private and public collections all around the world. His latest exhibition combines the many themes that have shaped his practice over the years, namely nature, culture, and their intimate interconnection— symbols to which he returns time and again, revealing their complexities with every new show. Just like its title, the water is a poem, unwritten by the air, no. the earth is a poem, unwritten by the fire, the exhibition is a complex proposition—at once demanding and introspective—which the artist chose to communicate through different media, intricate symbols, and unique sensorial and spatial experiences.

The space of the Petit Palais is a jewel in itself—dazzling and towering, its size immediately forces you to raise your head to see it as a whole. There, hanging in the Rotunda Hall, are Rondinone’s humansky—an ensemble of suspended sculptural nude bodies of trapeze dancers embellished with a blue cloud-dotted sky camouflage. Visitors find themselves instantly captivated, their senses challenged.

“The sculptures serve as vessels that contain the natural world of air and water,” says Rondinone, who was inspired for the project by Italian Renaissance paintings. The elemental theme progresses in the Sculpture Gallery with nudes, a series of sitting nudes spread among eighteen historical plaster sculptures from the Palais’s collection. Fragmented and in different brown tonalities, they depict the human-scale bodies of eleven Swiss male and female dancers at rest—self-absorbed and motionless as if in a meditative state. With nudes, Rondinone pushes sculpture to the edge of some avant-garde artistic proposition, raising it above a mere representation of nature. “The sculptures are made of wax and earth, sourced from all seven continents,” he explains. “They merge the element of earth with the human body, becoming one with nature.”"