Rona Pondick’s Monkeys and Head in Tree on View at Belvedere Museum

Rona Pondick, detail from Monkeys, 1998-2001, Stainless steel, Edition of 6 + 1 AP, 41 1/4 x 66 x 85 1/2 in (104.77 x 167.64 x 217.17 cm)

Rona Pondick, detail from Head in Tree, 2006-08, Stainless steel, Edition of 3 + 1 AP, 105 x 42 x 37 in (266.7 x 106.68 x 93.98 cm)

Installation view of Head in Tree

Installation view of Monkeys

American artist Rona Pondick’s metal sculptural work Monkeys was on display in the Carlone Hall of the Upper Belvedere since September. Monkeys, created during 1998-2001, shows several monkeys playing around, while some body parts appear in human forms. The hybrid form of human and monkey reveals suffering among playfulness, demonstrating the artist’s artistic style during this creative period.

In the meantime, Rona Pondick’s Head in Tree is also included in the exhibition Grow: The Tree in Art at the Lower Belvedere. The exhibition is curated by art historian and curator Miroslav Haľák, focusing artworks related to trees to demonstrate the complex connection between human beings and the ecology as well as the various roles trees play in it. Pondick’s Head in Tree, created during 2006-2008, combines the tree form and a human head cast from the artist’s own. It responds to the human-tree hybrid form in art and mythologies, and the complicated relationship between human subjects and flora and fauna in the natural world.

On the exhibition opening on Sept. 22, over 600 VIP guests gathered in the Marble Hall where Pondick’s Head in Tree was on display, enjoying the artist’s artistic creation.

Photo: Johannes Stoll