Ugo Rondinone “the water is a poem unwritten by the air no. the earth is a poem unwritten by the fire” at Petit Palais, Paris

Revolving around human bodies in get in touch with with the elements and mother nature, these performs are in keeping with the many households of is effective generated by the artist considering the fact that the late 1980s. Earth, sky, air, drinking water and fire, affiliated with beings at rest or in motion, are invoked in the fulness of their religious
dimension.

The first ensemble, humansky, welcomes website visitors and promptly underlines the melding of getting and the components: 7 moulded, suspended bodies embellished with a blue cloud-dotted sky “camouflage” confronting site visitors with h2o and air.

The 2nd group, traditionally the supply of this trilogy, is composed of nudes. Created from a mix of clear wax and earth gathered from 7 continents, these sculptures also have a “camouflage” look stemming from the mixing of their non-homogeneous parts. They depict the bodies of male and feminine dancers seated and at rest. Created on a human scale, these nudes appear realistic at to start with, until eventually the customer, coming closer, discovers their plainly artificial facet, significantly obvious at the junction of their limbs with their bodies. These sculptures are so “paradoxical” in their compliance with the Rondinone aesthetic: he plays on the “opposition” between what is anticipated of a dancer, and the pose he can make every one particular think. Banishing any choreographed gesture and any reference to the phase space, these motionless, withdrawn bodies seem to have develop into just one with nature, intensely concentrated and dropped in a meditative state.

From one particular ensemble to the up coming website visitors witness a approach of bodies in mutation: going from the ethereal suspension of humansky to the quasi-lethargy of the nudes, the bodies are “reborn” in the movie burn off to glow, whose presentation at the Petit Palais is a entire world premiere. The film is projected onto 6 screens inside a cylindrical area designed of charred wooden and forming a circle, a recurring geometric determine for the artist. The body is in motion below: 12 percussionists and 18 male and woman dancers are collected all over a fireplace in the desert. Combining an ancestral trance from the Maghreb with the gestures of a up to date dance conceived with the enable of Franco-Moroccan choreographer Fouad Boussouf, they unite with nature from sunset until eventually dawn, when the sun rises once again.

The cylinder’s wooden slats exclude any look at of the outside the house they reveal a path to stick to. Considering the fact that the starting of his vocation, Ugo Rondinone has regarded as it essential to produce an enclosed “isolated” setting facilitating dialogue with character. Therefore the importance for him of presentation gambits attenuating the existence of the bordering city landscape. The filters on the windows—when the sun goes down and the moon comes up—in the sculpture gallery and the north pavilion are component of this quest and remind us above all that each individual of Rondinone’s exhibitions is inherently a perform of art in its possess correct.

In accordance to the artist, the hyperlink concerning the 1st two groups and burn up to shine is a desire for transformation: “The original inspiration came from a poem by John Giorno titled ‘You need to burn up to shine’”: a Buddhist proverb about the coexistence of existence and death, reminiscent of the much older Greek fantasy of the phoenix, the immortal chicken that regenerates cyclically or is reborn in a distinct way. Involved with the solar, the phoenix receives new everyday living by resurrecting from the ashes of its predecessor.”

Lastly, the artist has taken into account operates belonging to the Petit Palais, with which his individual are confronted here. He has turned to anthropomorphic sculptures from the museum’s assortment to superior “contextualise” the nudes and surrounded the cylinder of burn up to glow with 4 paintings by Eugène Carrière.

at Petit Palais, Paris
right up until January 8, 2023