A Mountain, a Horizon, and a Landscape Opening Within Us: “the sun and the mountain”

Some exhibitions speak loudly as soon as you enter through the door. Others quiet you at first sight. Ugo Rondinone’s exhibition the sun and the mountain stands close to the second group. The mountains and sunrise-sunset paintings you encounter in the expansive space of Dirimart Dolapdere suggest that one look into the silence within oneself, rather than constructing a spectacular landscape to gaze upon.

Serving as Rondinone’s first solo exhibition with Dirimart and in Istanbul, the sun and the mountain can be visited between September 2 and November 8, 2026. The exhibition brings together 20 new sculptures from the artist’s Mountain series alongside 14 sunrise and sunset watercolors dated 2023.

Why Do the Mountains Feel So Familiar?

Rondinone’s mountains do not represent a specific geography. These are not real mountains whose locations we can find on Google Maps; they are sculptural forms where stones balance atop one another, recalling the human way of looking at nature.

In the Mountain series, the artist draws inspiration from natural rock formations called hoodoos and the tradition of stone balancing. By placing stones of various sizes on top of each other, he creates sculptures that appear surprisingly delicate at times and monumental at others. According to Dirimart’s statement, these works evoke thoughts of balance, permanence, and the ancient relationship humanity has formed with nature.

Wandering among these sculptures in the exhibition hall, you notice the colors at first glance. Neon oranges, greens, purples, and blues contrast with the natural weight of the stones. On one side stands the geological patience of millions of years; on the other, an almost artificial, bright, and contemporary world of color. This encounter renders the works both playful and thought-provoking.

Vertical Mountain on One Side, Horizontal Horizon on the Other

One of the key encounters of the exhibition is established between the sculptures and the watercolors. The sculptures rise upward, while the watercolors unfold horizontally along the horizon line. This arrangement makes visible the meeting of mountain and sea, verticality and horizontality, and weight and openness.

As their titles suggest, the sunrise and sunset paintings look at two thresholds of time. Those brief intervals when the sun rises and sets appear in the exhibition not as a grand event, but as a slowly shifting atmosphere. As colors blend into one another, rather than depicting the scenery of a specific place, the paintings capture the emotion light leaves in our mind.

Precisely for this reason, the exhibition offers an experience far too personal to be brushed aside simply under the title of “works inspired by nature.” Rondinone’s nature is not an image standing outside; it is a space completed by the human gaze. Looking at the mountain, we begin to contemplate our own patience; looking at the horizon, our own openness.

Time Flows Differently in the Artist’s World

Ugo Rondinone’s practice has long been shaped around nature, time, solitude, and human conditions. Seas, mountains, trees, clouds, rainbows, rain, and snow do not feature in his works merely as aesthetic elements; they transform into fundamental forms he uses to reflect upon the constantly changing rhythm of life.

Time is directly felt in this exhibition as well. The stone sculptures appear motionless and heavy, while the watercolors carry a sense of light that could shift in a matter of minutes. One evokes permanence, the other transience. Yet both connect to the same question: How do we perceive the world, and what does our relationship with nature tell us about ourselves?

The beautiful aspect of Rondinone’s works is that they do not force answers to these questions onto the viewer. Instead of guiding you with “you should think this,” the exhibition opens up a space where you can pause and look for a while. Perhaps you catch yourself fixated on the balance of a sculpture, or the shift of light in a watercolor. Sometimes, without explaining anything, you simply remain immersed in the colors.

A Quiet Yet Impactful Gathering at Dirimart Dolapdere

the sun and the mountain transforms the spacious gallery venue in Dolapdere almost into an interior landscape. Walking among the sculptures means moving inside the exhibition rather than observing it from the outside. This elevates the experience of the exhibition into a whole larger than individual artworks.

In Dolapdere, one of the districts where contemporary art in Istanbul is concentrated, this exhibition can serve as a great stop, especially for those wishing to step away briefly from the city’s fast pace. Here, rather than a visual spectacle to be rapidly consumed, there is an atmosphere that permits one to slow down.

In the end, the sun and the mountain is not an exhibition that announces its big ideas out loud. It treats the mountain, the horizon, and the sun as the oldest images anyone can share, then transforms them into a personal experience. Leaving the gallery, a single image might not linger in mind. Instead, a color, a sense of balance, or a distant feeling of the horizon carried within you for a while longer might remain.