Ugo Rondinone

(Switzerland, *1964)

‘ermatingen mountain’ | 2021, painted stone and stainless steel, 733 × 320 × 170 cm, ca. 24.1t, UBS Art Collection © Ugo Rondinone

Ugo Rondinone is one of the most important contemporary Swiss artists of his generation. Working as a painter, sculptor, and photographer, he is most concerned with the perception of space and time and how humanity interacts with its natural environment. In 1996 Rondinone represented Switzerland at the São Paulo Biennale and in 2007, together with fellow Swiss creator Urs Fischer, he built an impressive large-scale installation at the 52nd Venice Biennale.

Rondinone began elaborating his series of monumental mountain sculptures in 2011, when commissioned by the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno in the United States to create a site-specific public installation. With the aim to begin a new chapter in the history of Land Art, an art movement that emerged towards the end of the 1960s and is characterized by artistic interventions in nature, he remained indebted to his historical forebears, while being simultaneously influenced by Pop Art and comic culture. By stacking between two to six huge boulders of various shapes painted in Day-Glo colours, he creates giant rocky spires that protrude from the landscape. Reminiscent of the naturally formed hoodoos in the deserts of North America, but also of the age-old spiritual practise of piling stones, these sculptures pose a stark contrast to their surroundings.

ermatingen mountain is a unique sculpture commissioned by the UBS Art Collection. The artist was inspired by the beautiful landscape surrounding the Wolfsberg – UBS Center for Education and Dialogue in Ermatingen, Switzerland. By playing on our perception of scale - the piles look small from a distance, but huge when close-by - the artist elevates the surrounding landscape and invites us to broaden our perspective. He wants to produce a democratic art, that everybody can relate to and share. Overwhelming and powerful, yet balanced and meditative, Rondinone’s mountains highlight the contrast between the organic and constructed, between nature and civilisation.

Rondinone lives and works in Zürich and New York.