The Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone, whose multiple productions have included giant monster heads, hugely scaled Old Master landscape etchings, reclining odalisque-clowns and ghostly white olive trees, has come up with something sublime for his new exhibition at Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea.
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Seven life-sized nude figures are spaced around the sky-lit gallery space, sitting in peaceful repose against its white wall, informally posed on the concrete floor. Jointed like store-window mannequins, the figures -- two male and five female -- are exquisitely detailed, for they are cast from the human body in wax. Sections of each figure are done in different earth colors, chic organic tones seem straight off the fall runway, creating a weirdly seductive surface.
Broken and pieced together, Rondinone’s elegant mannequins are captured in a tender moment. Details like a drooping hand or poignantly arched foot create a realism imbued with vulnerable artificiality. "Nudes" is a lyrical continuation of Ugo Rondinone’s singular journey from the existential to the ephemeral.
As Rondinone finished his installation, he said, "The earth tones give the nude a sort of a camouflage, even if they are born naked." With their closed eyes, the works evoke a modest and meditative calm. "It’s all about plainness, about roughness," Rondinone said, adding, "The volume is felt somehow, keeping them on the edges." The figures are simply titled nude (x), nude (xx), and so on, "just to keep them anonymous."
For the careful observer, a lyrical secret is hidden in the dramatic exhibition, the artist’s first with Gladstone Gallery. Search the seemingly pristine walls for this enigmatic treasure, small handwritten poems.
With two major European museum shows, plus a move of his house and studio, 2010 has been a busy year for Ugo Rondonine. "Night of Lead," a masterful retrospective of 20 years of work, appeared at Spain’s Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León and at the Aargauer Kunsthaus in Switzerland. The show’s title comes from a novella by the German playwright (and organ builder) Hans Henny Jahn that, Rondinone says, "deals with identity and self-reflection, about how the shelter of the night encourages honesty and catharsis, how the life of the narrator is always at the mercy of its own narration."
Rondinone’s iconic artworks -- "big heads," a cluster of casts of olive trees from Basilicata, a replication of John Giorno’s Bowery fireplace, oversized versions of Chinese scholar rocks, suspended large wax pigment light bulbs as well as star paintings and diary drawings -- took over the entire museum.
Born in 1964 in Brunnen ("a very remote place in the deepest part of Switzerland"), Ugo is proudly Italian. "I was raised Italian. The food, the traditions, very much so. My parents came from Basilicata, the place where Mel Gibson shot Passion of Christ. I go to Italy at least five times a year."
While he has galleries in Naples, London, Paris, New York and Zurich, Ugo said, "I would not show anywhere in Italy north of Rome. This was something I just decided very early. They just treat the South very badly still. It’s just out of politics, to make a statement. Everything is concentrated between Milan and Torino."
Art brought Ugo to New York in 1998, when he came for a specific project mingling poetry and sculpture. "I came for a grant and then I fell in love." Ugo worked with poets Anne Waldman, Diane di Prima, Andrew Lord and especially John Giorno, with whom he now lives. "The project was for each poet to have a tree, with tiny speakers hidden, delivering a poem." Since then Ugo has made downtown New York his home. He represented Switzerland in the 2007 Venice Biennial, and curated "The Third Mind" at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
Here in New York, Ugo may be best known for his candy-striped rainbow sculpture reading "HELL YES," a dramatic affirmation of gay culture which until recently hung on the New Museum façade. "It wasn’t meant to be there forever," Rondinone said.
Ugo has turned his street level storefront window at 39 Great Jones Street into an impromptu gallery. For October, John Giorno’s painting featuring the words "LIFE KILLS" drew much attention from passersby. Currently on view is "My Gang," an installation by Wesley Martin Berg, Ugo’s assistant. Like many artists, Ugo has a very personal art collection of his own, including works by Joe Brainard, Ann Craven, Verne Dawson, Bruno Gironcoli, Brion Gysin, Karen Kilimnik, Cady Noland, Paul Thek and of course, Giorno.
"I like when the artist is involved, not just an observer," Ugo said. When asked about the huge cross above his bed, he smilingly replied, "John sleeps there. It’s to exorcise his Buddhism." Ugo added, "And be sure to mention the artist Valentin Carron from Martinique, a little village in Switzerland, who shows at Gallery 303."
Concurrent with his exhibition at Gladstone, Rondinone has installed five tree sculptures in the atrium of the former IBM Building on Madison Avenue and 57th Street. "I brought a small olive orchard of about 15 trees in Basilicata. You cannot take olive trees out of the ground. These trees are over 2,000 years old." Trees have been emblematic in his work, and Ugo said, "Trees are a natural sculpture. I don’t have to do anything. I make molds by sections, then do castings." Even the fake bamboos in the sweeping corporate atrium are enhanced by Rondinone’s ghostly orchard.
Ugo Rondinone, "nude," Nov. 6-Dec. 23, 2010, at Gladstone Gallery, 530 West 21st Street, New York, N.Y. 10011.
ILKA SCOBIE is a New York poet.
