Introduction
Spanning the entirety of the museum’s newly designed second floor, good evening beautiful blue by Ugo Rondinone is part of a major multi-institution retrospective comprising works that span three decades of the artist’s practice, from the late 1990s to the present. From poetic installations in public spaces to life-size drawings, Rondinone’s work balances on the edge of euphoria and detachment.
good evening beautiful blue begins with Rondinone’s clockwork for oracles II (2008). The multi-wall installation is comprised of 52-mirrored windows (one for each week in the year) set against a backdrop of whitewashed pages from a local newspaper. Visitors encounter their mirrored reflections, stopping momentarily to contemplate how their temporary presence in the room contrasts with the dated newsprint behind the windows, which becomes more distant throughout the duration of the exhibition. The subsequent gallery houses vocabulary of solitude (2014-2016), the centerpiece of the exhibition and the only work present in all venues of the retrospective. vocabulary of solitude is an installation of 45 life-size clown figures cast from 22 men and 23 women of various ages and ethnicities. The work takes inspiration from the artist’s reflection on his daily actions, where each figure is engaged in a different quotidian activity, such as sleeping, dreaming, remembering, showering and walking.