Ugo Rondinone the clock and the window

This winter Sadie Coles HQ presents two works by Ugo Rondinone at the Bury Street gallery in St James’s. The selection from Rondinone’s recent body of work (both 2022) first featured in the artist’s when the sun goes down and the moon comes up exhibition at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva, earlier this year.

Rondinone’s the null returns to the artist’s earlier window series in which the viewer is urged to peer through a looking glass that does not open onto anything beyond. First appearing in 1995, the window motif acts simultaneously as a mirror to the viewer and a magnifying glass to society, emblematic of a threshold, bringing light into dark, separating interior from exterior. In this display, using the guise of three blocks of colour to distort the depth of the work, Rondinone once again manipulates how the viewer’s reflection participates with its surface, transforming the window into an object of contemplation.