Ugo Rondinone Human Nature

Ugo Rondinone (b. 1962), the Swiss-born, New York–based artist, has created a major work of public art for Rockefeller Center. Human Nature includes nine colossal stone figures, standing like ancient sentries along the full length of Rockefeller Plaza between 49th and 50th Streets. Ranging in height from 16 to 20 feet, they weigh up to 30,000 lbs each.

Using rough-hewn slabs of bluestone from a quarry in Northern Pennsylvania, the artist has imbued each figure with a distinctive personality. Like a forest of giants, their immovable legs form gateways through which visitors may pass, sensing the tactile surfaces of these primal forms.

Since the earliest civilization, we’ve had the impulse to create images in our own likeness. Using the elemental material of stone, Rondinone has done so in the most archetypal way. Mythic in scale and imagery, visceral in character and impact, Human Nature reconnects the contemporary world with our distant origins.

Ugo Rondinone: Human Nature is curated by Nicholas Baume.