Ugo Rondinone

Nr. 214 VIERUNDZWANZIGSTERJULIZWEITAUSENDUNDNULL, 2000

Ugo Rondinone has been working on this series of circle pictures since the mid-1990s. While both their size and his technique of applying paint using a stencil and a can of spray paint remain unchanged, the ‘music’ changes according to the ‘mood’ engendered by the use of different colors. In terms of their motif, Rondinone’s circle paintings hark back to other ‘standards’ in art history: to Jasper Johns’ and Kenneth Noland’s “Targets” of the 1950s and to the Op Art pictures of the 1960s. Rondinone revisits these ideas and adapts them for contemporary aesthetic tastes with the paint sprayer’s technique. Because of the way in which their edges blur, the pictures develop a hypnotic, resonant motion which seems both to draw the viewer in and yet at the same time exert an almost physical aggression. These contradicting perceptions are reflected in the contradictions inherent in the object itself: blurred target rings.