Ugo Rondinone’s Universal Sculptural Language
“I believe public sculpture has to reach as much public as possible,” Ugo Rondinone once said of his projects, which employ universal symbols—from rainbows to rudimentary faces—in order to achieve universal understanding. For his new “Human Nature” exhibition in conjunction with Public Art Fund, Rondinone will fill the plaza of Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan with nine colossal human-shaped stone sculptures. Some of them standing as tall as 20 feet, the primordial figures are unlikely to be missed.
“The stone figure is the most archetypal representation of the human form,” he says of the works. “An elemental symbol of the human spirit, connected to the earth yet mythic in the imagination. The image of the figure belongs to nobody, is timeless, and universal.”
“Human Nature” will be on view in Rockefeller Center Plaza in Midtown Manhattan between Fifth & Sixth Avenues and 49th and 50th Streets from April 23rd through June 7th, 2013.Images courtesy of Public Art Fund, NY
