The Pleased and the Delighted
In *The Pleased and the Delighted*, Ugo Rondinone works with bluestone sourced from a quarry near his Pennsylvania home, a material he first embraced in 2013 after years of exploring diverse media including wax, paint, stained glass, bronze, lead, and earth. The sculpture belongs to a body of work remarkable for the tension it holds between the maximally abstract and the maximally particular, where the raw specificity of a locally sourced stone is transformed into form that feels universal and timeless.
- Medium
- In 2013, Rondinone decided to work with stone. Hitherto, he had explored media ranging from wax, paint and stained glass, to bronze, lead and earth. His use of the bluestone from the quarry near his Pennsylvania house, however, engendered a set of works unique in their conjunction of the maximally abstract and the maximally particular.
- Location
- Phillips, Salt Lake City, UT
- Spotted At
- Auction House · PhillipsView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
June 27, 2016
Collectors of Ugo Rondinone
Artists in conversation
Richard Serra
American · b. 1938
Serra's monumental sculptures share Rondinone's commitment to raw industrial and natural materials transformed into austere, contemplative form, where the physical weight and specificity of matter becomes the subject itself. Both artists pursue a minimalist aesthetic that invites meditative engagement with material presence and three dimensional mass.
Ulrich Rückriem
German · b. 1938
Rückriem works almost exclusively with quarried stone, often sourcing material from specific regional locations, then splitting and reassembling it to reveal the tension between geological particularity and abstract geometric form. This direct parallel to Rondinone's bluestone practice and his balance of the site specific and the universal makes Rückriem an exceptionally close comparison.
Andy Goldsworthy
British · b. 1956
Goldsworthy's sustained engagement with locally sourced stone and earth materials, transformed into forms that feel simultaneously primal and contemplative, echoes Rondinone's nature inspired and meditative approach to sculpture. Both artists foreground the intrinsic qualities of geological material while elevating it into a register of quiet, universal meaning.
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