UGO RONDINONE

These sculptures are part of a body of work that includes a collection of fish, primordial (2016), of horses, primal (2013), and birds, primitive (2011) all cast in bronze. The groupings of creatures from sea, land and air represent the wider world, and encapsulate the trinity of themes — natural phenomena, Romanticism and existentialism — that underpin the artist’s oeuvre.

The fundamental subject matter that the small bronze figure of a fish probes is visually emphasized by their honest and unadorned aesthetic. Each animal is unique, hand modeled by the artist in clay before being cast into bronze. The roughness of the process means that fingerprints are still visible in the bronze, calling attention to the individuality of each sculpture and the manner of its creation. Rondinone has spoken of how each sculpture “represents the emotional situation of the time I made them,” and how the traces of his personal touch give them an immediacy that should speak directly to the viewer.