Burn Shine Fly - UGO RONDINONE

UGO RONDINONE

BURN  SHINE  FLY

SCUOLA GRANDE SAN GIOVANNI
EVANGELISTA DI VENEZIA

burn shine fly
Ugo Rondinone

Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista
San Polo, 2454
30125 Venice
Vaporetto: San Tomà

April 20 – September 24, 2022
Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 6 pm
Open to the public / no tickets necessary

#burnshinefly

A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue will be published by Skira in 2022.

the sun II, 2021, gilded bronze, 500 x 538 x 82 cm (196 7/8 x 211 3/4 x 32 1/4 in), edition of 3. FENIX c/o Stichting Droom en Daad, Rotterdam.
Exhibition view: Ugo Rondinone, burn shine fly, Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista, Venice (2022)
Photos: © Andrea Rossetti
I made the first sun sculpture for ‘voyage d’hiver,’ an outdoor exhibition at the Château de Versailles in 2017. The sun is made from pieces of branches knotted together, cast in bronze and gilded. The sun sculpture is not only an investigation of the mutable potential of sculpture as both a physical medium and a site of rich cultural disclosure in art, but also a celebration of life; its seasons and rhythms, its plants and stones with which we share the planet and our own wild life. - ugo rondinone
humancloud (2022; 7 parts, each unique in a series of three variations; polyurethane, paint) suspended in the church of Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista.
Exhibition view: Ugo Rondinone, burn shine fly, Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista, Venice (2022)
Photos: © Andrea Rossetti
In 2009, I made casts of 14 nude dancers in contemplative positions. The bodies were made with a mix of soil and transparent wax. The soil was sourced from all seven continents. Last year, I started a new video installation called ‘burn to shine’. Its shows 18 dancers dancing around a fire in the desert from sunset to sunrise. Similar to the Greek mythology of the phoenix, the immortal bird that cyclically regenerates, the dancers merge with the fire and obtain by sunrise a new life cycle. The seven flying bodies are also casts of dancers. Their bodies are camouflaged as cloudy skies. The flying body-clouds mark the end of a trilogy where the human body merges with the natural elements: soil, fire, water, and air. - ugo rondinone

80 unique, painted, cast bronze candles with lead, from still.life.  exhibited on the floor of the Badoer space.
Exhibition view: Ugo Rondinone, burn shine fly, Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista, Venice (2022)
Photos: © Andrea Rossetti
The candles belong to the group of still.life. sculptures from 2013, where I cast small everyday objects in bronze and fill the hollowness of the bronze cast with lead and place the sculpture directly on the floor. The notion of the lead reinforces the dense solidity which causes the candle to lock heavily onto the floor. Part of its sufficiency results from weight and scale; it looks distant rather than small. In establishing this distance, the candle literally puts a lot of ground between itself and the viewer, asserting its own presence, that of the empty and surrounding area, and that of the solidly horizontal place on which the candle rests. - ugo rondinone


PRESS CONTACT:
DAVID ULRICHS
DAVID@DAVIDULRICHS.COM
+49 176 5033 0135

Inquiries: 

Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich
Andreas Grimm

Esther Schipper, Berlin
Tara K. Reddi

Sadie Coles HQ, London
Pauline Daly

Gladstone, New York
Simone Battisti

kamel mennour, Paris
Jessy Mansuy

Kukje Gallery, Seoul
Morgan Bang

SUPPORTERS:
GALERIE EVA PRESENHUBER, ZURICH
ESTHER SCHIPPER, BERLIN
SADIE COLES HQ, LONDON
GLADSTONE, NEW YORK
KAMEL MENNOUR, PARIS
KUKJE GALLERY, SEOUL