LIFE TIME Ugo Rondinone

Time and transience, day and night, reality and fiction, nature and culture

Ugo Rondinone adds a poetic dimension to everyday objects and phenomena. In typically Minimalistic arrangements, he puts a tree, a clock, the sun or a rainbow in new contexts by means of repetition, isolation, or reduction, creating atmospheric ambiences. The Schirn is dedicating a large survey exhibition to Rondinone that will show­­case key paintings, sculptures, and video works by the renowned Swiss artist. Devised specifically for the Schirn, his new installation extends along the entire length of the gallery and into the Rotunda. The exhibition and the book »Life Time« combines fundamental themes that have shaped the work of the conceptual and installation artist for the past thirty years: time and transience, day and night, reality and fiction, nature and culture. Rondinone has repeatedly referred to the iconog­raphy of Romanticism in his works and used quotes from literature and pop culture. The starting point of his multimedia oeuvre is the transformation of the outside world into a subjective, emotional inner world. He develops experiential spaces in which the viewer actually becomes part of the ­installations and their immersive structures. 

– SNOECK