Ugo Rondinone, 'the galaxy' (2011), Cast bronze, patinated. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich.
‘primitive’ is the first exhibition in Scotland of the work of the remarkable Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone.
Featuring a group of recent works in a new and precisely conceived installation, the exhibition included a large group of bronze bird sculptures, filling the building with an almost threatening persistence. Imposing in number if not in scale, these modest little birds, so clearly and simply hand-made, were named after vast natural phenomena: from ‘the sun’ and ‘the moon’ to ‘the universe’ and ‘the atmosphere’ – referencing the natural world beyond the gallery.
Ugo Rondinone, 'Primitive', installation view, The Common Guild, 2012. Photo: Ruth Clark.
Rondinone first came to international attention in the early 1990s with installations that involved a striking diversity of forms. His exhibitions might include India ink landscapes in the Romantic tradition, or mesmerising target paintings that recall the trance-inducing images of 1960s psychedelia. He combines works with an up-beat, pop sensibility with others that reflect a mood of longing and disconnection, from photographs of a man and a woman who never meet to melancholy images of clowns slumped on floors. His works often have a strong sense of time being suspended, and reflect on the conflict between reality and a world of mirrors, dreams and artifice.
