Ugo Rondinone the sinkhole, 2013

The small figures of horses are moulded in clay by the artist, then cast in bronze and left untreated after the casting. Both the uniqueness and the rough, hand-made character of the sculptures are further emphasized by the titles given to individual works. These titles, functioning rather more like evokative names, refer to natural phenomena: for example, "the grassland," "the cosmos," "the foliage," or "the sunrise."

Although the work seems to play with art historical notions of the materiality of bronze, the marks left by the artist's touch, and the reappearing equestrian motif (one of the oldest art history has), the interaction of all these elements suggests a subversive twist. This somewhat ironically overdetermined sentimental investment is characteristic of Ugo Rondinone's work.