Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone is launching MORE LIGHT, a city-wide project in London this summer, spanning three chapters across Mayfair and the Royal Academy of Arts. The project includes a monumental rainbow poem suspended in the Royal Academy's courtyard, fifty-four flags along Bond Street featuring sunrise and sunset images, and a gallery presentation of new watercolour paintings at Sadie Coles HQ. Developed in collaboration with the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, the installations explore light as a shared human experience through universal motifs like sunrise, sunset, sky, and horizon.
This project matters because it transforms both public and gallery spaces into a cohesive meditation on light, presence, and impermanence, inviting broad public engagement beyond traditional art audiences. Rondinone's work, known for blending conceptual rigor with emotional resonance, extends his ongoing investigation of nature and spirituality into the urban fabric of London, creating a constellation of works that encourage collective reflection on elemental phenomena. The collaboration with the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition also underscores the growing trend of institutional partnerships that bring contemporary art into public realms.