This summer, Ugo Rondinone is bringing a city-wide meditation on light, colour and human experience to London with MORE LIGHT, a three-part project unfolding across Mayfair and the Royal Academy of Arts.
Developed in collaboration with the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, the project transforms public and gallery spaces through a sequence of installations centred on one elemental subject: light itself.
Spanning a rainbow installation at the Royal Academy, a series of flags along Bond Street and a gallery presentation of new paintings, MORE LIGHT explores light not simply as a visual phenomenon but as a shared experience that connects bodies, cities and consciousness.
At the heart of the project is Rondinone’s longstanding fascination with universal imagery. Sunrise, sunset, sky, horizon, sun, and moon become recurring motifs that recur throughout the work.
The first chapter, THE SONG IS YOU, takes the form of a monumental rainbow poem suspended three metres above the courtyard of the Royal Academy. Positioned at the entrance to the Summer Exhibition, the work creates a symbolic threshold through which visitors pass as they move from the street into the institution.
The second chapter, LIGHT, extends into the city itself. Fifty-four flags installed along Bond Street each feature a different sunrise or sunset image drawn from Rondinone’s ongoing series of sunrise and sunset paintings, a body of work he began in 2016. As visitors move through Mayfair, the flags unfold as a sequence of changing skies, tracing the rhythm of a day across the urban landscape.
The final chapter, MORE LIGHT, brings six sunrise and sunset paintings into the intimacy of the gallery space. Created with watercolour on unprimed cotton, the works are reduced to their most essential elements: a horizon line, a circle or half-circle and delicate washes of colour. The resulting images hover between appearance and disappearance, presence and impermanence.
Together the three presentations form a progression from public encounter to private contemplation.
Rondinone describes the project as a movement “from threshold, to city, to inner space; from the singular body, to the collective, to consciousness itself.”
Across all three chapters, light remains the constant element. Not as metaphor, but as a condition of existence.
“Sunrise, sunset, are universal images that belong to no one and to everyone at the same time,”
Rondinone writes.
“In these works, light becomes a way of thinking about presence, impermanence, longing, and the continuous passage of time.”
Known internationally for works that combine conceptual rigour with emotional resonance, Rondinone has consistently explored themes of nature, spirituality and human experience. With MORE LIGHT, he extends that investigation into the fabric of London itself, creating a constellation of works that invite viewers to pause, look up and reflect on the elemental phenomena that connect us all.
Ugo Rondinone: MORE LIGHT London, Summer 2026 Including: THE SONG IS YOU – Royal Academy of Arts Courtyard, LIGHT – Bond Street, Mayfair& MORE LIGHT – Gallery presentation of new paintings
ugo rondinone, more light, 9th June – 22nd August 2026, Sadie Coles HQ, Bury Street
About the artist
Ugo Rondinone was born in 1964 in Brunnen, Switzerland. He studied at the Universität für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna before moving to New York in 1997, where he lives and works to this day.
His work has been the subject of solo presentations at Royal Academy of Arts, London (2026); Bond Street, Mayfair (2026); Institut de France, Paris (2025); Fondation Beyeler, Riehen (2025); The Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan (2025); Arte Abierto, Mexico City (2025); The Madoo Conservancy, New York (2025); The Watermill Center, New York (2025); Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich (2025); Pilane Sculpture Park, Tjörn Island (2025); Reiffers Art Center, Paris (2024); Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2024); Museum Würth, Künzelsau (2024); Kunstmuseum Luzern, Luzern (2024); Museum SAN, Wonju (2024); The Phillips Collection, Washington, (2023); Fosun Foundation, Shanghai (2023); Galerija Kula, Split (2023); Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (2023); Parrish Art Museum, New York (2023); Städel Museum, Frankfurt (2023); Storm King, New York (2023); Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève, Geneva (2023); Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista di Venezia, Venice (2022); Manifesta 14 Prishtina, Prishtina (2022); Qatar Museums, Doha (2022); Petit Palais, Paris (2022); Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2022); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2022); Sculpture Milwaukee, Milwaukee (2022); PODO Museum, Jeju (2022); Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland (2021); Belvedere, Vienna (2021); The National Exemplar, Iowa City (2021); Lustwarande, Tilburg (2021); Belvedere 21, Vienna (2021); Triënnale Kortrijk, Kortrijk (2021); SKMU Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Norway (2021); Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp, Cully (2021); The National Exemplar, Iowa City (2020); Sant’Andrea de Scaphis, Rome (2020); Museo de Arte Moderno Medellín, Medellín (2019); Beaux-arts de Paris, Paris (2019); Kunsthalle Helsinki, Helsinki (2019); Guild Hall, New York (2019); Carré d’Art, Chapelle des Jésuites, Nîmes (2019); The Contemporary Austin, Texas (2018); Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2018); Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles (2018); Malta International Contemporary Art Space, Malta (2018); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018); Fondation Carmignac, Porquerolles (2018); Fundación Casa Wabi, Oaxaca (2018): ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj (2017); in 2017, a major retrospective took place across leading cultural spaces in New York including The Kitchen, White Columns, Artists Space, The New Museum, The High Line, Sky Art, Swiss Institute, Red Bull Arts New York, Hunter College Art Galleries, New York (2017); The Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2017); Bass Museum of Art, Miami (2017); Château de Versailles, Versailles (2017); Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2017); Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2017); Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati (2017); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California (2017); Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2017); MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome (2017); Bass Museum of Art, Miami (2016); Carré d’Art-Musée d’art contemporain, Nîmes (2016); MACRO, Rome (2016); Mercati di Traiano, Rome (2016); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2016); Art Production Fund and Nevada Museum of Art, Las Vegas (2016); The Institute of Contemporary Arts, Boston (2016); Place Vendôme, Paris (2016); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2015); Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney (2015); Secession, Vienna (2015). Forthcoming exhibitions include the Kiyomizu-dera Temple, Kyoto and Piazza della Signoria, Florence.
