Ugo Rondinone’s huge target sucks me into it. The nearer I approach, the more dizzying the flickering, dissonant, concentric circles of colour become. We have an interactive picture in front of us which, without the aid of a computer, manages to get by with the old painting trick of demonstrating that total flatness contains illusionist potential. Perhaps one should rather speak of an immaterial sculpture that works deep into the room, insisting on imposing its own rules of the game. Wherever one stands, very close or far away, this shamanic picture always forces our gaze towards a single point till we can no longer resist and surrender ourselves to the shimmer. In my childhood, that was called “staring into the idiot box”.

The centred, circular picture – an ancient symbol of perfection, a Pop Art icon, a dazzling reverberation of the psychedelic Sixties, an emblem of staggering emptiness. “Ecstatic boredom” is talked of in connection with Rondinone numbered paintings – and “hypnotic geometry”.

Ugo Rondinone, who studied in Vienna, is one of those carnival entertainers and trap setters who remind us of the unused reserves of our perceptual potential. According to Bice Curiger, the viewers’ insecurity consists of “not knowing whether one is inside or out”.

Wolfgang Kos, 2005 (translation: Tim Sharp)