Kunsthalle Helsinki opens the Finnish solo debut of Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Sunday, October 6, 2024


Kunsthalle Helsinki opens the Finnish solo debut of Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone
Ugo Rondinone, view of the installation vocabulary of solitude. Photo: Studio Rondinone.



HELSINKI.- Kunsthalle Helsinki opened its autumn season with everyone gets lighter, the Finnish solo debut of internationally acclaimed Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone (b. 1964). The exhibition is organized in conjunction with the Helsinki Festival.

Ugo Rondinone works across a wide range of contemporary mediums including sculpture, painting, audio, video and photography. He combines conceptualism with elements of Pop Art, reflecting on everyday events that often convey a contemplative, existential dimension. Through seemingly mundane elements, he delves into profound conceptual depths of the psyche and emotion. He uses rainbows and other universal symbols in the belief that art should accessible to everyone regardless of their age or background.

The centrepiece of the exuberantly coloured exhibition is vocabulary of solitude from 2014, a meditative installation of sculpted clowns in passive poses. The installation expresses the artist’s characteristic straddling between joy and sorrow: clowns are traditionally meant to be funny and entertaining, but in Rondinone’s exhibition, they are sombre and thoughtful, almost melancholy. The hyper-realistic clowns are of different genders and ethnic backgrounds. Collectively, they form a ‘day in the life’ portrait of a single confined person narrated through 45 different mundane activities: be. breathe. sleep. dream. wake. rise. sit. hear. look. think. stand. walk. pee. shower. dress. drink. fart. shit. read. laugh. cook. smell. taste. eat. clean. write. daydream. remember. cry. nap. touch. feel. moan. enjoy. float. love. hope. wish. sing. dance. fall. curse. yawn. undress. lie.

Separately, the oversized clown shoes exude a sense of calm or even loneliness. Carrying titles such as calm, still, silence and no one’s voice,all from 2006, they seem to quietly wait for the clown’s next performance to begin.

It is impossible to see out of the colourful windows hanging on the walls. Painted in bright colours, the hollow from 2014 and the pure from 2017 emphasize the enclosed nature of the exhibition space, forcing viewers to turn their gaze back on the gallery or themselves. Rondinone attempts to escape the white cube of the gallery, with windows serving as symbols of longing and self-reflection.

Rondinone’s iconic rainbows assume a variety of forms in the Kunsthalle exhibition. love invents us from 1999 transforms the atmosphere of the sculpture gallery with colourful decals on the tall windows, which filter incoming light in the myriad shades of the rainbow.

The glowing shades of the rainbow paintings vierzehnterseptemberzweitausendundfünfzehn from 2015 and achtundzwanzigsterjunizweitausendundsechzehn from 2016, create a sense of depth guiding the viewer out of the exhibition space through a rainbow shaped tunnel.

A rainbow-coloured textual sculpture announcing the title of the exhibition, everyone gets lighter from 2004 is fixed to the façade of the building. Many of Rondinone’s slogan-like sculptures reiterate everyday sayings or quotes from pop music or poems. The sculptures impart a message of hope, like aphorisms celebrating the value of life and love.

One of the works in the exhibition is a space lined floor to ceiling with children’s drawings of rainbows. Over a thousand Finnish schoolchildren contributed to the work, which forms part of the your age and my age and the age of the rainbow project launched in 2014, which has unfolded as part of exhibitions in various museums including the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai.

Ugo Rondinone was born in Brunnen, Switzerland and currently lives and works in New York. He has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at institutions including: Bass Museum of Art, Miami; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow; Place Vendôme, Paris; MACRO and Mercati di Traiano, Rome; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Museum Anahuacalli, Mexico City; Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai; Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens; Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna; and Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium. In 2016, Rondinone’s large-scale public work seven magic mountains opened outside Las Vegas, co-produced by the Art Production Fund and Nevada Museum of Art. In 2017, Rondinone curated a city-wide exhibition, Ugo Rondinone: I ♥John Giorno, which honored the artist’s life partner in thirteen venues throughout Manhattan.

The exhibition is part of Helsinki Festival’s official programme.










Today's News

August 26, 2019

Paleontologists find a 231 million years old saber-toothed Triassic squirrel

The work of fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga on view at Bendigo Art Gallery

First U.S. exhibition of photographs from The Howard Greenberg Collection debut at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Gianguan Auctions adds Chinese avant garde artists to paintings category

Kunsthalle Helsinki opens the Finnish solo debut of Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone

Titanic explorer to search for Amelia Earhart's plane

Placido Domingo gets standing ovation in Salzburg despite sexual harassment claims

Paul Holberton publishes 'Rembrandt's Mark' by Stephanie Buck & Jürgen Müller

Exhibition at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen celebrates the 15th anniversary of the Helvetia Art Prize

When Bob was Bobby: memoir offers insider's look at enigmatic Dylan

Keyes Gallery opens solo exhibitions of works by Nathan Slate Joseph and Bert Stern

Little Anal Annie: Marc Jancou opens an exhibition of works by Steven Parrino

Exhibition at Rokeby Museum introduces contemporary art to the historic site

SAGE Paris announces the representation of Katsunobu Yaguchi

National Air and Space Museum renovation update; museum remains open during construction

Lochlann Jain playfully turns categories on their head in her new book of original drawings

New book offers contemporary stories inspired by historic Canadian paintings

Copenhagen Contemporary opens an exhibition of works by the Swedish artist Jacob Dahlgren

Nearly 900 Mexican performers set world record for folk dance

Officine Grandi Riparazioni presents 'The Sound of Screens Imploding'

Exhibition at Artual Gallery gives new meaning to much-loved genre

Dissolution and regeneration of works gives pause to audiences

POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair will take place from September 12-15

Claire Richardson announced as Executive Director of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful