Ugo Rondinone at The Green Gallery

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Ugo Rondinone makes stupid work whose stupidity doesn't matter. That may be because he's Swiss and  the Swiss have a knack for stupidity, one that auto-destructs, abuses time, or is John Armleder. Swiss stupidity accepts a mechanistic uselessness. (Is it antidote to fine watches, knives?) It would seem joyless if it didn't build such elaborate contraptions for its own touched smile. The antecedents here of Ellsworth Kelly meets Yves Klein is a red herring to the main point of Rondinone turning stupidity back to its roots: flowers, bright colored whatevers made to attracts insects. It works. 

Ugo Rondinone at Carré D’art

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The particular sadness conjured by Rondinone is humor not completing - like a beautifully constructed joke that falls apart in water, its absurdity a torture device for our desire to connect with its elements, tiny horses, the light of day, nature, clouds. It's to prove how lonely we are. How badly we desire to connect.


Ugo Rondinone at Krobath, Olaf Breuning at Metro Pictures

Ugo Rondinone at Krobath

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What pleasantry, how pleasant. Yet the serial nature of Rondionine's forces the works lightness into its mechanization, becoming dark through repetition, like the clouds of infinite jest covering something sad.