vocabulary of solitude by Ugo Rondinone

Known for his spectacular, yet deeply philosophical, installation works, Rondinone’s art is characterised by the sweet melancholy produced when combining the happiness of rainbow colours with a stillness, sadness and atmosphere of ennui.

A total space installation comprising window colour treatments (screen film) clown sculptures arrayed in various positions on floor, floor cover in vinyl. The window treatments include front window side and back.

Ugo Rondinone (b.1964) was born in Brunnen, Switzerland and lives and works in New York. Rondinone emerged as an artist in the 1990’s and has since developed a varied artistic practice which includes painting, drawing, large and small scale sculpture, installation, video and sound art. Rondinone has had major solo exhibitions at Whitechapel Gallery in London (2006), Centre Pompidou in Paris and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney (2003), Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna (2002), and MoMA PS1 in New York (2000). In 2007 he represented Switzerland in the 52nd Venice Biennale (with Urs Fischer) and curated The Third Mind at Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

Rondinone’s performatively costumed and made-up clowns stand in as those figures who remain outside society’s mainstream. In a time in which we’ve spent hours contemplating solitude, Rondinone offers the opportunity to explore notions of being through his community of jesters. Supported by the Auckland Contemporary Art Trust.

Image credit:

Ugo Rondinone, vocabulary of solitude, 2014, ­polystyrene foam, epoxy resin, fabric. Installation view: Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, 2021. Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich. Photograph, Jennifer French.