Ugo Rondinone (Swiss, b.1964) is an installation artist best known for his circular spray paintings and video environments that convey a sense of melancholy and alienation. Born in Brunnen, Rondinone graduated from the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in Vienna in 1990. Starting in the 1990s, he has produced a series of circular paintings that are titled by number and resemble Kenneth Noland’s target paintings.
Rondinone works with different media, such as photography, video, sculpture, and drawing, and often appropriates phrases from literature and popular culture. For his series I Don’t Live Here Anymore (1995-1998) Rondinone digitally manipulated photographs of fashion models in suggestive poses, so that his facial features replace those of the models. Many of his works involve signage, such as the rainbow colored sculpture Hell, Yes! (2001), which stood on the facade of the New Museum in New York. By contrast, the installation Roundelay (2003) sets a melancholic tone with six video projections of a man and woman walking through the streets of Paris; the spatial distortions and score by composer Philip Glass evoke alienation in an urban environment.
Rondinone has held solo exhibitions at several museums around the world, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla in León, Spain. In 2007, he represented Switzerland at the 52nd Venice Biennale. He currently lives and works in New York.