“Soul” by Ugo Rondinone, 2013 ​
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​“Stick-to-itiveness” is now included in the dictionary. It’s about perseverance — whether we’re born with it or learn it. It’s about continuing to show up and doing what matters, even when you don’t feel like it, and especially when the world is yelling that you don’t matter, that you’re crazy, that who you think you are and what you have to say doesn’t matter. I’ve been thinking a lot about what matters and why I care so much when someone feels what I think doesn’t matter. Why do we keep having to learn, again and again, that we get to choose what we care about? Today, as I listened to Erin Brockovich tell her story, I was reminded that thinking differently is beautiful, and whatever we think, feel, and care about is valid and matters. It is our responsibility to amplify what we care about. There is no special reward for conformity of thought or action, but there is an internal reward for expressing the uniqueness of who we are.
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Ugo Rondinone made a series of stone figures in a variety of sizes for his exhibition Soul in 2013. Each one is different, but they have a visual uniformity, as if they’re all from the same humanity. When you look closely, though, their heads sit slightly differently on their bodies, their legs are longer or shorter, their torsos are thin or thick. They are us. And we are them.

 -Heidi Zuckerman,  CEO and director of the Orange County Museum of Art and author of Why Art Matters: The Bearable Lightness of Being.​

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Installation view, Ugo Rondinone, soul, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Maag Areal, Zurich, 2013. Courtesy of the artist.

Photo: Stefan Altenburger
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