Museum Würth 2 exhibits “Ugo Rondinone – solar spirit”, the winner of the 15th Robert Jacobsen Prize by the Würth Foundation
Museum Würth 2, Künzelsau, 6 September 2024 to 23 March 2025
Künzelsau. Ugo Rondinone, a Swiss artist based in New York, was awarded the 2023 Robert Jacobsen Prize at the award ceremony in Künzelsau on Thursday, 5 September. The prestigious award of the Würth Foundation comes with a prize money of EUR 50,000. “In his poetic and conceptual works, Ugo Rondinone addresses the contradictions of life and creates a dialogue between the artificial and the natural, culture and society, as well as eternity and transience,” said Philipp Demandt, speaker in honor of the artist and jury member of the Robert Jacobsen Prize on the artist’s award.
On the occasion of the award, Museum Würth 2, in cooperation with the artist, will present the accompanying exhibition “Ugo Rondinone – solar spirit” in the museum’s belvedere and in the sculpture garden around Carmen Würth Forum in Künzelsau until 23 March 2025.
Künzelsau. The conceptual, media and installation artist Ugo Rondinone, born in Brunnen, Switzerland, in 1964, is one of the best-known artists of his generation worldwide and has shown his works in numerous solo exhibitions in London, Paris, Boston, Zurich, Rotterdam and Frankfurt, among others. After all, his monumental groups of works can repeatedly be found dominating public space, whether in urban contexts such as New York and Paris or in the Nevada desert. Seemingly with ease, Rondinone pursues the original nature of his motifs and plays with a universally understandable vocabulary or, as he puts it himself, “the visual alphabet of archetypes,” which can be experienced through the works presented in Künzelsau.
He puts the weighty materials of his expansive sculptures, such as stone or bronze, in contrast with a naïve aesthetic of form and poetic subtlety. For example, the primordial installation made up of bronze fish floating freely in the room transforms the belvedere of Museum Würth 2 into a kind of aquarium of origins, in which visitors can literally immerse themselves. The circular arrangement of his sculpture group sunrise. east symbolizes the course of the year with the help of twelve sometimes grotesque aluminum heads alluding to the months. The wide range of ambivalent human emotions is reflected in their faces in such a striking way that sometimes remind you of the pictorial idiom used in comics or the currently ubiquitous emojis. The great importance of idiom in Rondinone’s oeuvre is also evident in autumn moon: The title promises an autumn moon; what we see, however, is a cast of a 2,000-year-old olive tree that Rondinone presents as a “time capsule”. The moon itself is only implied indirectly in the shine of the enameled surface. The colossal stone figure the loyal, eight meters high and weighing in at around 40 tons, also impresses not only with its sheer size. It is the most recent work featured in the exhibition and made of stone, the most original material for Rondinone. This brings the works presented in Künzelsau full circle when it comes to the materials used.
The exhibition “Ugo Rondinone – solar spirit. 15th Robert Jacobsen Prize by the Würth Foundation“ at Museum Würth 2, Künzelsau, can be visited daily from 10:00 to 18:00 until 23 March 2025. Admission is free.
About the Robert Jacobsen Prize
After the death of sculptor Robert Jacobsen in 1993, the Würth Foundation endowed the Robert Jacobsen Prize in cooperation with Museum Würth. Every other year, it is awarded to contemporary visual artists to commemorate Robert Jacobsen’s oeuvre and influence. After their first accidental encounter in the 1970s, the Danish sculptor and Prof. Dr. h. c. mult. Reinhold Würth, entrepreneur and art collector, became long-standing friends. In 1991, Jacobsen completed his largest sculpture installation on the forecourt of the Würth Group’s new administration building, which has characterized the look of the Group’s headquarters ever since. The Robert Jacobsen Prize is endowed with EUR 50,000.
In 2021, the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset was awarded the prize, in 2018/19 Eva Rothschild, in 2016/17 Yngve Holen, in 2014/15 Michael Sailstorfer, in 2012 Jeppe Hein, in 2010 Alicja Kwade, in 2008 Monika Sosnowska, in 2005/6 Bernar Venet, in 2003 Rui Chafes, in 2001 Stephan Kern, in 1999 Gereon Lepper, in 1997 Magdalena Jetelová, in 1995 Richard Deacon and in 1993 Lun Tuchnowski.
The international jury of the 15th Robert Jacobsen Prize is made up of Dr. Christoph Becker, former Director of Kunsthaus Zürich; Dr. Philipp Demandt, Director of the Städel Museum and Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung; Prof. Dr. Michael Eissenhauer, former Director General of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; Fabrice Hergott, Director of Musée d'Art moderne de Paris; Prof. Dr. Bernhard Maaz, Director General of Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich, together with the previous prize winners artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset as well as C. Sylvia Weber, Director of the Würth Collection, and Maria Würth, Member of the Board of the Würth Foundation.
On the occasion of the award, Swiridoff-Verlag will publish a book on Ugo Rondinone with contributions by Philipp Demandt and Maja Lisewski, at a price of EUR 16.
About the Würth Foundation
Prof. Dr. h. c. mult. Reinhold and Carmen Würth founded the Würth Foundation in 1987. As a civil law foundation based in Künzelsau, Germany, it promotes charitable and benevolent causes. The Würth Foundation supports a wide range of projects in the fields of education and science, integration and social affairs as well as art and culture. Its activities focus on the Heilbronn-Franconia region and are supported by the German Würth Group companies, in particular Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG.