Public Art of Ugo Rondinone Creates Playful Space

September 20, 2013  |   Feature
Share This Post

Ugo Rondinone’s installation of nine massive, humanoid stone sculptures in New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza, Human Nature.

The sculptures “are surprisingly witty,” ARTINFO’s Rozalia Jovanovic wrote in her one-line review of the Ugo Rondinone’s public art project, “transforming Rock Center plaza (where the Christmas tree stands each year) into a mythic but playful outdoor garden that impresses itself upon you less in specific visuals (though the figures’ jaunty boulder heads and long towering limbs quickly become seared into your memory) than in the — taken together, the forms have a and slightly mocking aura.”
The sculptures “are surprisingly witty,” ARTINFO’s Rozalia Jovanovic wrote in her one-line review of the Ugo Rondinone’s public art project, “transforming Rock Center plaza (where the Christmas tree stands each year) into a mythic but playful outdoor garden that impresses itself upon you less in specific visuals (though the figures’ jaunty boulder heads and long towering limbs quickly become seared into your memory) than in the — taken together, the forms have a and slightly mocking aura.”

In Des Moines, Iowa, Ugo Rondinone (Swiss, born 1963) has three sculptures at the John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park which features artwork by 21 of the world’s most celebrated artists.The 4.4 acre park, located within a major crossroads of the urban grid, creates a pedestrian friendly entranceway to downtown core of Des Moines.

Rondinone's "Moon Rise, East, January" is located in the Pappajohn Sculpture Park at the southwest corner of 13th Street and Grand Avenue, in Des Moines, Iowa.
Rondinone’s “Moon Rise, East, January” is located in the Pappajohn Sculpture Park at the southwest corner of 13th Street and Grand Avenue, in Des Moines, Iowa.