Artists

Ugo Rondinone

Press release

Mennour is pleased to present Ugo Rondinone’s third exhibition at the gallery: “still”, on view at 5 & 6 rue du Pont de Lodi, Paris from 10 October to 21 December, 2024.

“The basalt sculptures of nuns + monks continue to address the dual a between the inner self and the natural world. Just as the external world ones sees is inseparable from the internal structure of oneself, nuns + monks allows such layers of significance to come in and out of focus, prompting the viewer revel in the pure sensory experience of color, form and mass, while simultaneously engender in an altogether contemporary version of the sublime.”

— Ugo Rondinone

Ugo Rondinone is one of the great innovators in contemporary painting and sculpture. Each stage of his three-decade career is characterized by a quest for reinvention, formal and material experimentation and a desire to renew his audiences and his own and understanding of what sculptures and paintings could become. “still” brings together three body of works, experimenting with color, texture, scale and materiality in whole new ways. 

Genderless painted anthropoids on pedestals, sixteen nuns + monks are life sized. All cultures have a version of this religious iconography, and the heroic proportions and color infused palette imbue the figures with ancient power and contemporary vision. One series is painted bronze and a new series of basalt stone and stainless steel is presented.