PRESENTATION: Ugo Rondinone-Cry Me a River

Ugo Rondinone is recognized as one of the major voices of his generation, an artist who composes searing meditations on nature and the human condition while establishing an organic formal vocabulary that fuses a variety of sculptural and painterly traditions. His hybridized forms, which borrow from ancient and modern cultural sources alike, exude pathos and humor, going straight to the heart of the most pressing issues of our time, where modernist achievement and archaic expression intersect.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Kunstmuseum Luzern Archive

Ugo Rondinone is considered to be one of Switzerland’s most important contemporary artists. Despite his international career, the artist Ugo Rondinone, who grew up in Brunnen, still has close ties to Central Switzerland. His work is characterised by the overwhelming beauty of the landscape and the force of nature. The expansive installation “Cry Me a River” by Ugo Rondinone invites viewers to become immersed both in his art and in the elements. The focus of this artist’s work is on the overwhelming beauty of the landscape and the force of nature. Rondinone grew up in Brunnen on the Vierwaldstättersee. In the course of his inter-national career he has since moved and made New York his main place of residence. Ugo Rondinone is now returning to his home country to present an extensive retrospective exhibition called “Cry Me a River”. The exhibition title quotes a song that has been interpreted by numerous singers, from Ella Fitzgerald to Justin Timberlake. In Ugo Rondinone’s case, the “river” refers concretely to the river Reuss, which flows into the Vierwaldstättersee in front of the Kunstmuseum Luzern. There are parallels in the exhibition between the works of art and the immediate surroundings. The artist stages his place of origin lovingly and with a lot of cheerfulness. His love of materials also links into the legendary “Innerschweizer Innerlichkeit” (inner Swiss inwardness), for which the traditional materials of bronze, ceramics or stone were of particular importance. Ugo Rondinone’s stone figures continue the tradition of helpful signposts in the mountains. But unlike those to be found when out hiking, his stone figures are larger than life, standing firmly in space and appearing to rise up beyond the viewers. The reverse size ratios are both intriguing and sur-prising, enabling us to view the figures differently. This playing with dimensions is a recurrent element in the artist’s oeuvre. The work “primal” consists of 59 miniature bronze horses. On closer inspection, we can make out the artist’s finger marks. Ugo Rondinone’s sculptures are a consistent and clearly recognisable strand in his overall oeuvre. The horses resemble prehistorical objects; excavated by archaeologists, they might even be considered to be lucky charms for hunters. Horses, fish, birds, rainbows, sun and lightning flashes are all familiar to us – Ugo Rondinone’s motifs are simple, immediate and accessible, and therein lies the strength of his works. With “thank you silence” he introduces the beauty of slowly fluttering snow into the museum space, thus awakening childhood memories: astonishment at the white splendour, delight in snowball fights, the angel outline in the white powdery snow. The artist throws up a bridge between work and viewers by using familiar motifs, traditional materials and techniques, as well as bright colors.

Photo: Ugo Rondinone, six-six-thousand-twenty-four, 2024 acrylic on canvas, 400 x 600 cm, Kunstmuseum Lucerne, deposit of the Stiftung BEST Art Collection Lucerne, formerly Bernhard Eglin-Stiftung Photo: Studio Rondinone

Info: Curator:  Fanni Fetzer, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Europaplatz 1, Luzern, Switzerland, Duration: 6/7-20/10/2024, Days & Hours: Tue & Thu-Sun 11:00-18:00, Wed 11:00-19:00, www.kunstmuseumluzern.ch/