Introduction
Watch the exhibition film here
burn shine fly
Ugo Rondinone
Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista
San Polo, 2454
30125 Venice
Vaporetto: San Tomà
Directions to Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista
April 20 – September 24, 2022
Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 6 pm
www.burnshinefly.com
“The sculptures in ‘burn shine fly’ aims to engender an altogether contemporary version of the sublime, one in which the smallest candle sculpture is of no less consequence than the overarching totality of the sun sculpture or the stellar marriage of the earthbound body with the waterfilled sky. The work should dazzle us and send us into a deep reflection about the marvels and mysteries of life.” - Ugo Rondinone
On the occasion of the 59th La Biennale di Venezia, the Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista will host a major solo exhibition of work by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone, entitled burn shine fly.
Curated by Javier Molins, burn shine fly will be installed within the historic walls of one of the oldest and most important Scuole in Venice, with both iconic works by Rondinone as well as a new body of work created specifically for this exhibition; to be unveiled on the occasion of the opening.
Founded in 1261, Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista sets before visitors the long and rich history of the city of Venice. Its walls have housed treasures ranging from relics of the True Cross to works by renowned Venetian Renaissance artists such as Titian, Carpaccio and Bellini. An imposing, sculptural stone gateway designed by 15th-century Venetian sculptor and architect, Pietro Lombardo, leads into this historic complex of buildings, transforming the street passage into an enclosed quadrangle, an intimate courtyard which leads to the church and the Scuola’s magnificent frescoed and painted rooms.
Ugo Rondinone (b. 1964, Brunnen, Switzerland) is recognized as one of the major voices of his generation, an artist who composes searing meditations on nature and the human condition while establishing an organic formal vocabulary that fuses a variety of sculptural and painterly traditions. The breadth and generosity of his vision of human nature have resulted in a wide range of two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects, installations, videos, and performances. His hybridized forms, which borrow from ancient and modern cultural sources alike, exude pathos and humor, going straight to the heart of the most pressing issues of our time, where modernist achievement and archaic expression intersect.
burn
still.life. (candles)
The candles belong to the group of still.life. sculptures from 2013, where I cast small everyday objects in bronze and fill the hollowness of the bronze cast with lead and place the sculpture directly on the floor. The notion of the lead reinforces the dense solidity which causes the candle to lock heavily onto the floor. Part of its sufficiency results from weight and scale; it looks distant rather than small. In establishing this distance, the candle literally puts a lot of ground between itself and the viewer, asserting its own presence, that of the empty and surrounding area, and that of the solidly horizontal place on which the candle rests.
shine
the sun
I made the first sun sculpture for ‘voyage d’hiver,’ an outdoor exhibition at the Château de Versailles in 2017. The sun is made from pieces of branches knotted together, cast in bronze and gilded. The sun sculpture is not only an investigation of the mutable potential of sculpture as both a physical medium and a site of rich cultural disclosure in art, but also a celebration of life; its seasons and rhythms, its plants and stones with which we share the planet and our own wild life.
fly
human clouds
In 2009, I made casts of 14 nude dancers in contemplative positions. The bodies were made with a mix of soil and transparent wax. The soil was sourced from all seven continents. Last year, I started a new video installation called ‘burn to shine’. Its shows 18 dancers dancing around a fire in the desert from sunset to sunrise. Similar to the Greek mythology of the phoenix, the immortal bird that cyclically regenerates, the dancers merge with the fire and obtain by sunrise a new life cycle. The seven flying bodies are also casts of dancers. Their bodies are camouflaged as cloudy skies. The flying body-clouds mark the end of a trilogy where the human body merges with the natural elements: soil, fire, water, and air. – Ugo Rondinone
Selected Press
Ocula: Echoes of John Giorno with Ugo Rondinone in Venice by Stephanie Bailey
Ignant: In Venice, Burn Shine Fly By Ugo Rondinone Reflects On The Intrigue And Beauty Of Life by Devid Gualandris
Accompanying the exhibition is a forthcoming bilingual catalogue in English and Italian burn shine fly, featuring an essay by the curator Javier Molins and published by Skira.
Supporters: Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, Esther Schipper, Berlin, Sadie Coles HQ, London, Gladstone, New York, Kamel Mennour, Paris, Kukje Gallery, Seoul
Media Partners: The International New York Times, Mousse, Art Review, Blau International.