About
Artist Ugo Rondinone has, for the first time, created a series of seven masks, veritable wearable sculptures in gold, realised in collaboration with goldsmith Pierre Hugo.
Ugo Rondinone is a major artist of the contemporary art scene. For the past twenty years he has explored, in an often enigmatic manner, themes of fantasy and desire through various media such as installation, photography, video, painting and sculpture. In his works, he delves into the psychological and emotional depths of the human being through the most mundane elements of daily life, multiplying references to literature, music and theatre, creating sensory environments by combining notions of interiority and exteriority.
Ugo Rondinone was born in 1964 in Brunnen, Switzerland. He lives and works in New York, in the United States. His work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions worldwide, including at the Consortium in Dijon in 1997, the Kunstverein Stuttgart in 2002, and the Centre Pompidou in 2003. He has represented Switzerland at the 52nd Venice Biennale and was curator of an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo "The Third Mind" in 2007. More recently, he has exhibited at the Kunsthaus Aurgauer in Switzerland in 2010 and at MUSAC in Leon in Spain in 2011. IN 2013, he will present works in galleries Almine Rech in Paris, Barbara Gladstone in New York and Eva Presenhuber in Zurich and hold solo exhibitions at Museum M Leuven and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Pierre Hugo is regarded, together with his father Francois Hugo, as the foremost manufacturer of artist's jewellery in the world. In 1955, at the request of Pablo Picasso, who at the time wanted to create silver dishes, Hugo developed a technique of repoussé and chased precious metal that entirely enchanted Picasso. So much so that from then on, he became his exclusive jeweller. Since then, he has created 23 carat sculptures and gold jewellery in close collaboration with the greatest artists of his time: Arp, Cocteau, Derain, Dubuffet, Max Ernst, Lurcat, Matta, Picasso and Dorothea Tanning ...
Pierre Hugo continues the tradition by realising this ensemble of seven masks in 23 carat gold after original sculptures by Ugo Rondinone, created by the artist especially for this purpose. These are veritable wearable sculptures; none of these pieces are mechanically made, they are designed by Rondinone like an artist of the workshop would and crafted into gold by one of the workshop's master goldsmiths. A series of seven different masks, one for each day of the week and named as such, in continuity of the Moonrise series by Rondinone.
Each piece is signed, numbered from 1/6 to 6/6 plus 3 artist's proofs numbered 1/3 to 3/3. A box specially created by Ugo Rondinone and a certificate of authenticity accompany each piece.