Dreissigstermaerzzweitausendundzwei

Spanning three metres in width, Ugo Rondinone’s Dreissigstermaerzzweitausendundzwei is a monumentally-scaled work from his series of striped panoramas. Flat horizontal bands of colour divide the picture plane, refracting a spectrum of colour that migrates from cool blue to pale pink and deep red. Largely created during the early 2000s, these works occupy a central position in Rondinone’s diverse multimedia practice, operating in tandem with his celebrated series of ‘target’ paintings. Hovering before the viewer like vast abstract landscapes, they exemplify the artist’s exploration of subjective experience: an enquiry that has driven his practice since the 1990s. Their trance-like compositions forge a critical dialogue with the transcendental aspirations of the so-called ‘abstract sublime’ espoused by the 1960s Colour Field painters. Whilst their hypnotic strata of colour initially seem to offer glimpses of another realm, their even surfaces and clinical application of paint ultimately reject all promise of spiritual fulfilment. Rondinone enforces this distinction by titling each work after the date of its completion – in this case 30 March 2002 – thereby casting them as calendric records of daily existence. Ultimately, these works are not vehicles for sublimation, but rather – like On Kawara’s ‘date paintings’ – objects that testify to the banal, quotidian passage of time. ‘I understand art as essentially static, which creates its own artificial gravity system, where the work states its own void or abyss’, explains Rondinone (U. Rondinone, quoted in Ugo Rondinone: How Does It Feel?, exh. cat., Le Centquatre, Paris, 2009, p. 52). For all its dazzling optical illusion, the present work is fundamentally grounded by its material and temporal condition, drawing the viewer into its depths only to bring them resolutely back down to earth.