Ugo Rondinone’s triumphant 30-year retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Luzern is an ode to Switzerland’s majestic, overlapping mountains and verdant landscapes. “Cry Me a River” ranges from his early to his most recent work, reflecting themes that have been a consistent source of inspiration. The same reverence for nature that inspired his large-scale black-and-white landscape drawings of the 1990s also animates his highly popular Seven Magical Mountainsthe daylight-colored rock formations that have adorned the Nevada desert since 2016.

The Swiss multidisciplinary artist, born in Brunnen, Switzerland to Italian immigrants from the ancient city of Matera, is internationally known for a body of work that synchronizes contemporary experiences with ancient origins. As the artist turns 60, this retrospective feels like a homecoming, “taking us on a journey into the artistic universe he created,” Rondinone gallerist Eva Presenhuber said in a statement.

This spring, I first saw “Cry Me a River” at the artist’s central Harlem studio. A New Yorker for decades, he lives and works in a renovated church, complete with feather-shaped ceilings and original stained-glass windows. In a rare interview, Rondinone described each room of his upcoming show, rendered in miniature modeling.

The title of the exhibition comes from the famous American torch song originally composed by Arthur Hamilton in 1953 and to which he has returned over the years. It refers to the Reuss River in front of the Kunstmuseum, which flows from Lake Lucerne, near where the artist grew up, and perhaps also to the Hudson River in New York, a stone’s throw from the artist’s studio.

Three months later, I traveled from Italy to Lucerne for the opening of the Kunstmuseum. The dazzling waterfront building, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, sits on the banks of the pristine Reuss River and is a stone’s throw from the modern train station. The Kunstmuseum’s permanent collection, housed on the spacious, glass-walled fourth floor, spans 500 years of Swiss art.

A perfect storm of large-scale bronze lightning bolts, painted a fluorescent yellow, takes over the first room. First shown at the Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea, here in Switzerland the dangerous beauty of the lightning group seems to be waiting for a zigzag electric flash. The fleeting lightning bolts are transmuted by the bright artificial color, with titles such as Glorious light And Luminous light.

Placed against a wall in the room, the show’s title work is a 1995 sculptural self-portrait of polyester, hair, and cotton, captured by the artist in repose. Barefoot, eyes downcast, cdrive me a river portrays Rondinone in a moment of youthful melancholy.

In New York, the artist described it this way: “cry me a river from 1995 is the first of three mannequins of myself. A seated figure in an otherwise empty gallery space. Later that year and the following year I made a mannequin of myself lying on the floor, and another leaning against a wall.” The early self-portrait is the only representative human in the show, and reveals a rare moment of intimacy for the very private artist. At the opening, it took a while for some people to notice the hyperrealistic, seated sculpture.

“The exhibition unfolds through 11 successive rooms. Each room features a work of art that represents the natural world—from lightning in the first room to snowfall in the last,” Rondinone said. “The self-portrait, in turn, generates a personal, meditative state throughout the exhibition, blurring the boundaries between the outside world and internally visualized space.”

In the catalogue essay, Marc Mayer, writer, director of Arsenal Contemporary in Tribeca, NY, and former director of the National Gallery of Canada, calls Rondinone “one of the most accomplished animists on the current scene.” The show’s inherent spirituality also connects Rondinone to Inner sweetness, the famous “central Swiss interiority” – a curatorial term coined in 1968 to describe a stubborn, mystical, inner character trait of Swiss artists.

The second room, “Primitive,” is from 2011. A flock of 59 cast bronze birds sit on the floor, creating a winding avian path for visitors to step among, some pecking at the ground, others standing alert. From the small birds to the giant stone figures, Rondinone explores the duality and movement of sculpture. This theme energizes the entire exhibition, as the artist explores scale and media from traditional to technological.

Vertically slanted silver chains from rain (2004) replicate a downpour, crowned by a dark and ominous painted storm cloud. “Rain is an early work. Just chains and a spray-painted silver cloud,” Rondinone offered a minimalist commentary on the Zen-like downpour of metal balanced by the cumulonimbus overhead.

Five stones figuresfrom 2023, are part of the immense megalithic trunk I first encountered in the 2013 Rockefeller Center Public Art Fund exhibition in New York City. “I trust stone as a material, its innate beauty and energy, its structural quality, its surface texture, and its ability to collect and condense time,” Rondinone says.

The five bluestone humanoids are made up of five solid slabs, but the subtle differences of a geometric block head or a traditionally proportioned skull, rooted on powerful limbs, give each figure an energy of its own. From the intimate birds to these massive figures, the artist plays with dimension while imbuing all of his pieces with a poetically understated passion.

Halfway through the show, we get an insight into Rondinone’s generous vision. He invited the children of Lucerne to create drawings for the show. Visions of the sun range from the literal to the abstract, all vivid with the fresh directness of children’s art. A special opening was held for the young artists.

Elsewhere, 2016’s Ancient is a school of coarsely textured fish hanging from a wire. The 50 patinated bronze creatures speak back to the birds as part of a series created between 2011 and 2016. “I made three groups of animal sculptures; birds, horses, fish. Something from the sky, the water, the earth,” Rondinone said. Each group consisted of 59 animals, each titled after a different natural phenomenon. As a group, they are named, Primitive, AncientAnd Ancient.

“I made the sculptures in clay. My fingerprints cover the surface of the raw, burnt bronze. The sculptures are small and represent something larger than us. My main interest is to show the intersection between the human and the natural world, as well as the limits of human consciousness in articulating such an encounter.”

In the last room it is snowing slowly. In thank you silence (2005) A small pile of plastic flakes collects on the gray wooden floor.

After the summer, the prodigious artist will soon have exhibitions in Europe, including at Esther Schipper in Berlin, the Museum Würth in Germany, Reiffers Art Initiative and Mennour in Paris. In December, her work will open at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado.

My last view of the show is the artist’s very first iconic rainbow sign, also known as SHOUT ME A RIVER, from 1997. The signage of neon, acrylic glass, translucent foil and aluminum illuminates the Kunstmuseum against the dark summer sky.

“The rainbow is a bridge between everyone and everything. The rainbow is a metaphor for our complex, ever-changing attitudes toward the environment and human rights,” Rondinone said. “Nature is not something separate from us, but intrinsic. We must look beyond racial, ethnic and religious identities to find a shared concern for the same ground that benefits both humans and nonhumans.”

Throughout the exhibition, Rondinone’s transcendental connection with nature touches on the sublime, referencing the concept of Inner clarity. The first raindrops of a gathering storm, mammoth humanoids, a silent snowfall, birds, horses, floating fish, all anchored by the mystery of a clock that defies time. “Cry Me a River” is a career-defining moment as Ugo Rondinone continues to elevate the mundane to the cosmic.

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