Ugo Rondinone Recasts 47 Bronze Fish in Colored Glass

Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone's primordial (rainbow) closes at Gladstone Gallery in Brussels on October 31, with 47 fish that were cast in bronze in 2016 now recast in colored glass. The forms did not change. The material did, and with it the fish go from absorbing light to holding it.

Gladstone's Closing Soon post carries a passage from Nicolas Vamvouklis of impulse magazine that describes the change better than a press release does. He writes that the fish are recast from bronze into colored Murano glass, and that "Suspended at varying heights, they drift through the rooms rather than occupy them. The material change immediately reshapes perception. Weight yields to transparency and an earlier geological quality dissolves into light."

47 Fish, Each Named for a Natural Phenomenon

The original series ran at Gladstone's Brussels gallery from April 20 to May 28, 2016. It was 47 sculptures, and each one was named for a natural phenomenon and embodied by a bronze fish suspended on wire. Sources list names such as cloud, rain, lightning, mountain, moon and wind, along with dew and bubble.

Rondinone's statement for the new show starts from that count. He modeled the fish in clay in 2016 and cast them in raw bronze, and he describes the change this way: "Their forms remain unchanged, yet they have undergone a transformation. Cast this time in colored glass, they no longer absorb light but hold it within themselves." Raw bronze takes light on its surface and gives little back. Colored glass lets light pass into the body of the fish, which is why the artist describes them as holding it.

The title splits the idea in two. According to the gallery, primordial points to the origin of life and rainbow points to light passing through matter.

Weight Yields to Transparency

Vamvouklis's sentence names the structural fact of the show. The 2016 version was a bronze ensemble hung on wire, and the glass version is suspended too, at varying heights according to his description, which makes the material the headline change. The contrast he draws is between weight and transparency, between a geological quality and light.

The photographs in the post are credited to usefulartservices. The caption gives no dimensions, no pricing and no installation count beyond the 47 fish, so the record available here is the artist's statement, the gallery's dates and one reviewer's description.

Rondinone Was Stacking Painted Stone in Nevada While the Fish Hung in Brussels

The first fish show overlapped with another of Rondinone's color projects. Seven Magic Mountains opened on May 11, 2016 in the Nevada desert, with towers between 30 and 35 feet tall built from locally sourced limestone and painted in dayglow colors. Seven Magic Mountains was produced by Art Production Fund and the Nevada Museum of Art and was announced for two years on view. The Brussels fish were on view until May 28, so for the last 17 days of that show Rondinone had both a bronze school in Belgium and a stack of painted stone near Las Vegas.

Color has been a long argument in his work. Since 1997 and his first neon piece, cry me a river, he has made 14 neon rainbow sculptures. Recasting the fish in colored glass is a different route to that idea. In the neons the rainbow is light made visible, and in the glass fish it is light caught inside an object.

Saturday on the Last Day Is Worth Checking

Gladstone Brussels is at Grote Hertstraat 12, Rue du Grand Cerf, Brussels 1000. The gallery's own site lists Tuesday to Friday, 10am to 6pm, while Ocula's listing adds Saturday from noon to 6pm. October 31 falls on a Saturday, so visitors planning the final day should confirm that the gallery is open before traveling.

The show opened on September 4 and runs 57 days to the close on October 31. Counts differ across listings, so it is worth saying which one this article follows. Gladstone's materials consistently give 47 fish for the 2016 series, while a Kukje Gallery page describes a presentation of the work with 52 life sized bronze fish, and a reference listing dates the series to 2018. Gladstone's figure and dates are used throughout.

The 47 fish go back to being an ensemble that exists in two materials, bronze from April 20 to May 28, 2016 and colored glass from September 4 to October 31, 2026.