"All the symbols I use come from the Romantic movement, from the rainbow and mask, to the solitary figure, tree, rain, and snow. The Romantic movement was the first movement to include irrationality, and dreams, that's why it's important. My profession is not to be logical."
—Ugo Rondinone
Joseph Mallord William Turner, A Great Tree, circa 1796. Image: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1977.14.5379 Ugo Rondinone’s gestural linework and smooth strokes of black India ink create an enchanting dreamscape in No. 331 VIERTERMÄRZZWEITAUSENDUNDVIER. Thick tree roots, shrubs and trees coalesce to form an expansive scene of tranquility, rich in references to Romanticism. With a nod to Turner’s exquisitely proportioned depictions of nature and Caspar David Friedrich’s expansive, open landscapes, Rondinone creates a monumental, monochromatic landscape that unfolds in front of the viewer.
However untethered No. 331 VIERTERMÄRZZWEITAUSENDUNDVIER is to a specific geographic location, its title firmly establishes its presence in the artist’s oeuvre. As curator Alison Gingeras notes, Rondinone’s landscape works “are subjected to a ritualized time of production” as he likens “his practice to a series of devotional rituals.i” These “rituals” underscore the artist’s spiritual devotion to his practice; a recorded, planned documentation of his completed work. The direct translation of the present work’s title, March 14, 2004, most likely references the work’s execution date, but not definitively. The mysterious allure of Rondinone’s work is highlighted by this complex relationship between specificity and vagueness that permeates his practice. More focused on the viewer’s emotional response to art, Rondinone firmly believes “that you don't have to understand an artwork. You have just to feel it.ii”
i Ugo Rondinone – zero built a nest in my navel, exh. cat, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2006, p. 279
ii Ugo Rondinone, quoted in Sam Gaskin, “Ugo Rondinone,” OCULA, October 20, 2014, onlineProvenance
Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
London, Whitechapel Gallery, Ugo Rondinone - zero built a nest in my navel, January 24–March 26, 2006, p. 198 (illustrated)
Zurich, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, ugo rondinone: kiss now kill later, September 2–October 30, 2011, pp. 278–279, 306 (installation view illustrated, pp. 278–279)
128
No. 331 VIERTERMÄRZZWEITAUSENDUNDVIER
ink on paper with silkscreen on Plexiglas plaque
78 3/4 x 118 1/8 in. (200 x 300 cm)
Executed in 2004.
Estimate
$80,000 - 100,000
Sold for $252,000
Avery Semjen
Head of Sale, New Now
212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com
New Now
New York Auction 28 September 2022
