Ugo Rondinone light blue clock, 2023

The work is the new iteration of Ugo Rondinone's series of clocks that combine important themes of the artist’s practice: the use of historical media and archetypal motifs, recurring references to the passing of time and an engagement with the emotional resonance of color.

Each clock is based on the traditional clock face. It is perfectly spherical, and divided internally by concentric circles radiating from the centre. Large Roman numerals, articulated in slender lines of grey lead, curl round the perimeter. Although every clock is rendered in delicate stained glass and finely framed in pale grey lead, they are available in a multitude of vivid colors and each have subtly different designs.

The hands that usually mark the passing seconds, minutes and hours, however, are missing from Rondinone’s clocks. Denying this familiar object of its functionality, the artist has transformed the clock from something that relentlessly charts the moments of our everyday existence into a strangely abstract entity. The clocks' fragile material, commonly associated with decorative or sacred windows, reinforces its conscious poeticism. Without the distraction of ticking hands, the translucent clock becomes a contemplative window onto the idea of passing time.