RONDINONE Ugo

Ugo Rondinone was born in 1964 to Italian parents in the resort town of Brunnen, Switzerland. He moved to Zurich in 1983 to become the assistant to Hermann Nitsch and studied at the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in Wien, from 1986 to 1990. In 1998 he moved to New York City, where he continues to live and work.

Rondinone emerged as an artist in the 1990s. Rondinone's paintings are noted for their brightly colored, concentric rings of target-shapes; strictly black and white landscapes of gnarled trees; and large rainbow signs.

In 2013 he exhibited an installation called Human Nature, a group of monumental stone figures in Rockefeller Center, Manhattan—resembling rudimentary rock totems

Ranging from installations to psychedelic paintings to large-scale drawings, Ugo Rondinone’s eclectic work balances on the razor’s edge between euphoria and depression. His signature incandescent colors and Pop references, as in his rainbow-hued and neon-lit sign pieces, turn cultural clichés (“Hell, Yes!”) into material for a contemporary Arte Povera, recycling old catchphrases, repurposed cement, or cast-off clothes. Similarly, his sculptures often transform everyday objects by casting them in bronze, giving them an artificial permanence that both underscores and denies their perishability. Rondinone represented Switzerland in the 52nd Venice Biennale.