Curated by Ludovico Pratesi
MACRO Testaccio
Pavilion 9B
Promoted by Roma Capitale - Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali
With the support of Sadie Coles HQ (Londra), Gladstone Gallery (New York-Bruxelles), Galerie Eva Presenhuber (Zurigo) e Esther Schipper (Berlino)
In Collaboration with MasterCard Priceless Rome
Media Partner Il Messaggero
Foto:
Ugo Rondinone
vocabulary of solitude, 2014
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2016
Polistirene, resina epossidica, tessuto
Dimensioni varie
Courtesy l’artista, Sadie Coles HQ, Gladstone Gallery e Galerie Eva Presenhuber
The exhibition giorni d’oro + notti d’argento by Ugo Rondinone will be divided between two of the capital’s most important institutional spaces: the MACRO Testaccio, the finest example of industrial archaeology and the Mercati di Traiano, a symbolic monument to imperial antiquity.
In the two locations the Swiss artist has devised a unique itinerary which will be developed around 2 great environmental installations conceived as 2 cycles, giorni d’oro + notti d’argento, which will transform the spaces into fantastic settings, where the visitor can engage with the works as a visual and conceptual experience.
Pavilion 9B of the MACRO Testaccio will house giorni d’oro + notti d’argento, which gathers together some of the artist’s works in a dazzling setting dominated by lights and colours and animated by the large installation vocabulary of solitude, which after the success at the Museum Boijmans in Rotterdam, will arrive for the first time in Italy and will move on next December to the Bass Museum in Miami, for the forthcoming Art Basel. The work consists of 45 clowns which with their 45 different postures, represent activities of everyday life, at the same time expressing the anguish of human solitude: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.
The exhibition at the MACRO Testaccio will be enriched by the presence of hundreds of rainbows designed by the students of the schools of Rome, involved directly by the artist in collaboration with the museum’s Education Department.
Biographical Notes
Born in Brunnen (Switzerland) in 1964, Ugo Rondinone lives and works in New York. His work revolves around visions linked to fantasy and desire, not devoid of shiny, playful and surreal aspects. He has exhibited in the major contemporary art museums of the world, from the New Museum in New York to the Louisiana in Copenhagen. In 2007 he represented Switzerland at la Biennale di Venezia and in 2013 he exhibited the public work Human Nature at the Rockefeller Center in New York. His last public exhibition in Rome was back in 2001, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye at Palazzo delle Esposizioni. Among his recent exhibitions are i love john giorno at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2015; artists and poets, Vienner Secession, Vienna 2015; breathe walk die, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, 2014, we run through a desert on burning feet, all of us are glowing our faces look twisted, Art Institute of Chicago, 2013. His works are housed at the MoMA in New York, at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, at the Dallas Museum of Art and others.