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Museum of Cycladic Art presents Ugo Rondinone exhibition

The Museum of Cycladic Art presents a new, site-specific installation by Ugo Rondinone, on view until 19 September 2012.


Ugo Rondinone, nude (xxxxxxxxxxxxx), 2011. Wax, earth pigments, 74 x 109 x 64 cm. Ed. 3/3 + 1 AP © the artist. Courtesy of Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich. Photo © Stefan Altenburger Photography, Zürich.

Ugo Rondinone has created a new, site-specific installation for the Museum of Cycladic Art. Rondinone intervened and changed everything about the space—the floor, the light, and the colors of the walls and ceiling—to create his characteristically otherworldly, dreamlike environment. Seven life-sized nude figures inhabit the space, in peaceful repose, informally placed on the floor. Jointed like store-window mannequins, the figures are exquisitely detailed, as they are cast in wax directly from the human body. The sections of each figure are made of different earth colors, a mixture of wax and earth pigments. Naked and vulnerable, they seem to be resting after or before a performance. Rondinone chose dancers at the peak of their youth, bodies full of energy to accentuate the contradiction with their state of inactivity and introspection. In the context of the Museum of Cycladic Art, where the figurines of the permanent collection, dating from 3000 BC, remain hermetically closed, resting in enigmatic serenity, Rondinone’s figures invite the viewer to reflect on the evolution of the figuration through the centuries but also on how humanity deals with existential questions through time.

Ugo Rondinone has earned international attention for his poetic, evocative work across a diverse range of mediums, including painting, drawing, photography, video, installation, and sculpture. Rondinone has had major solo exhibitions at Aargauer Kunsthaus in Aarau, Switzerland; Museo de Arte Contemporéneo de Castilla y León, Spain; Whitechapel Gallery in London; Le Consortium, Dijon; Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; PS1, Long Island City, New York; and Kunsthaus Glarus and Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst in Leipzig. He participated at the Yokohama Triennale 2011, Japan. He represented Switzerland in the 52nd Venice Biennial (with Urs Fischer) and curated The Third Mind at Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Rondinone’s neon sculpture Hell,Yes! (2001) was installed on the New Museum’s Bowery building façade from its opening in 2007 through 2010. Ugo Rondinone was born in 1964 in Brunnen, Switzerland to Italian parents and is based in New York.

Museum of Cycladic Art
4 Neofytou Douka st
10674 Athens, Greece
Hours: Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat, 10–17
Thu, 10–20; Sun, 11–17
www.cycladic.gr

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