Ugo Rondinone dritteroktoberzweitausendvierundzwanzig, 2024

The works executed in watercolor on canvas depict an abstracted mountain landscape with an uninterrupted horizon line. Each element of the landscape – mountains and the surface of a lake – is rendered in different colors of pink, red, green, blue, and black. The scene depicts the peaks of Swiss Alps as seen from the shores of Lake Lucerne. Ugo Rondinone, the native of the canton Schwyz, chose the alpine motif for his homecoming exhibition cry me a river at the Kunstmuseum Lucerne in 2024. The first two works featuring variations of this motif, monumental canvases 4 meters high and 6 meters wide, were acquired for the museum’s collection.

The vibrancy of these reductivist watercolors, as Marc Mayer aptly names them in the exhibition’s catalog text, is due to many thin layers of water-diluted pigment that the artist carefully applied. This technique creates the illusion of depth in the landscape, evoking the layered mountain peaks, as well as the reflections and shimmering of the lake’s water. As many other works by Rondinone, the landscape and its stillness has a meditative, almost spiritual quality.

The title of each the work is the date when the painting was finished, written in German in one word.