Ugo Rondinone (b. 1964) is recognized as an important voices of his generation. He is known for his searing meditations on nature and the human condition, using an organic, formal vocabulary that fuses a variety of sculptural and painterly traditions.
The generosity of his vision of human nature has resulted in the production of a wide range of two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects, installations, videos and performances. These artworks, taking hybridized forms, borrow from ancient and modern cultural sources alike. They exude pathos and humor, addressing some of the most pressing issues of our time.
Ugo Rondinone’s Doha Mountains are located at the intersection of geological formations and abstract compositions; consisting of vertically stacked rocks painted in varying schemes of Day-Glo colors. Inspired by naturally occurring Hoodoos (spires or pyramids of rock) and the art of meditative rock balancing - which has existed across cultures for thousands of years - their simplified modularity and color equally evokes the formal essence of minimalist art.
There is a duality present at the center of the artist’s practice: of the natural and the artificial, the eternal and the temporal. In each iteration, the sculptures appear poised between monumentality and collapse – seeming to defy gravity in their teetering formations, while also depending on it; bearing down like unsteady pillars on the landscape.
