Ugo Rondinone

Sommer Contemporary Art is pleased to announce Vocabulary of Loneliness, a solo exhibition by artist Ugo Rondinone at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City.

Rondinone explores aspects of human experience and perception that are linked to the sensations that we intuitively or culturally assign to these distinctions. In his work, symbols and cultural constructs, images and words that make their way across communication systems, latitudes and historical moments, are devices that Rondinone constantly analyses and uses, drawing on the capacity of each person to respond to them from a visceral and primal place.

The rainbow – a natural phenomenon, testimony to the physical laws of composition and the behaviour of light – is also a symbol with a broad cultural and religious background, which the artist uses to allude to the playful capacity of children to imagine environments, or for its associations with the LGTB+ community. Rondinone makes use of other symbols such as the lightning bolt, the cloud, the sun, the human body, the stone or the tree, all elements present in the visual imaginary of different cultures from prehistoric times to the present, which he plays with for their metaphorical richness and their capacity to establish connections with different audiences. Regardless of the breadth of meaning of these elements, the artist believes in the transformative power of art and states: “like a chronicler, I record the living universe: this season, this day, this hour, this sound in the grass, this breaking wave, this sunset, this end of the day, this silence”.