The Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone works in many mediums but is best known for creating large-scale “land art” sculptures. His Seven Magic Mountains, for instance, consists of towering totems situated in the Nevada desert and painted in Day-Glo colors. His sculptures have also been installed at the Jardin des Tuileries, the Yokohama Triennale, and the Rockefeller Center. Rondinone conjures the elements—earth, water, air, fire—and in his first solo show in an Austrian museum, he places a series of elegant wax nudes—sitting, reclining—in the Belvedere 21’s sunlit pavilion. In the same space, massive block sculptures formed from soil loom menacingly. “I see art making as a ritual, a meditation for myself,” the artist has explained. The gallery is his temple. —E.C.

Ugo Rondinone: Nude in the Landscape
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Belvedere 21 / Vienna / Art
Belvedere 21 / Vienna / Art
Installation view of Ugo Rondinone’s “Thank You Silence,” Museum Leuven, 2013. Courtesy of Studio Rondinone.
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