Ugo Rondinone is a Swiss contemporary artist working in mixed-media installations that include sculpture, painting, video, sound, and photography. His wide-ranging practice utilizes metaphoric and iconographic images such as clouds, animals, and figures, as well as powerful declarative sayings like “Hell, Yes!” or “long last happy”.

He conveys his profound interest in the contemplation of everyday life and activities. “I see art-making as a ritual, a meditation for myself,” the artist explains. “It’s to exclude myself from society and to create my own rites… The energy of art is that you can spend time with yourself.”

Inaugurated in early May 2016, Rondinone’s large-scale outdoor sculpture "Seven Magic Mountains", realized by the Art Production Fund and the Nevada Museum of Art, is on view in the desert near Las Vegas.

Born in 1964 in Brunnen, Switzerland, he studied at the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna and moved to New York in 1998. He has represented his home country in the 2007 at the 52nd Venice Biennale. His work can be found in the permanent collection of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.