Known for his vast mixed-media production, Ugo Rondinone is a Swiss artist who emerged on the international art scene in the 1980s. After studying at the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunste in Vienna, he moved to New York where he currently lives and works. Having had several solo exhibitions around the world, including at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla in León, Spain, he represented Switzerland at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007.

Among his multi-faceted production, which spans across various media including painting, sculpture, photography and video, the present lot is a mesmerising example from one of the artist’s most iconic Target Paintings series, which the artist has produced since the mid-nineties. Executed on a circular canvas, this work displays hazy rings of lime greens, whites, blues, and blacks that pulse in and out of the centre of the composition, creating a visual illusion that makes maintaining visual focus deliberately difficult. Favouring spray paint as a medium, Rondinone imposes an experiential intensity that arises from the hypnotic and abstract atmosphere in Mrz 2007, enthralling the viewer at first sight.

While reminiscent of the target paintings of Jasper Johns from the 1950s, Rondinone’s work contains a subtle irony directed at modernism. Although the target is closely linked with the act of looking and aiming, the circles of his version are blurred, annihilating the essence of the target.