Ugo Rondinone
6/28–11/5/2023

Grotesque creatures welcome the public to the Städel Garden. The Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone (b. 1964) will transform the prominent hill above the Garden Halls into a strange landscape. For his group of works “sunrise. east”, Rondinone assigned a head with characteristic, highly reduced facial features to represent each calendar month. Larger than life and cast in shiny silver aluminium, the massive sculptural heads are reduced to their facial expressions: With mouths agape, they gaze from small eyes, from friendly and naïve to sceptical, from surprised to eerie. They trigger the most diverse associations, evoking ritual masks and ghosts, as well as the visual language of comics, emoticons, and memes. Visitors to the Städel Garden are invited to come face-to-face with all twelve creatures – and thus every month of the year – and experience the various joys, adversities, and emotions of an entire year in fast forward.

Curator: Svenja Grosser (Deputy Head of Contemporary Art, Städel Museum)

Picture: Ugo Rondinone, sunrise. east. march, 2005, Courtesy the artist, Photo: Stefan Altenburger