Ugo Rondinone: Seven Magic Mountains, Las Vegas, Nevada, 2016. Photo by Gianfranco Gorgoni. Courtesy of Art Production Fund and Nevada Museum of Art.

Across the desert south of Las Vegas, Nevada, rises a large, colorful anomaly. Seven colossal stone forms defy gravity with their teetering formations. The shapes, reminiscent of naturally-occurring hoodoos, seem poised between monumentality and collapse. The mammoth contemporary cairns created by internationally-renowned Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone evoke the art of meditative rock balancing, and mark his place in the history of Land Art.

Seven Magic Mountains is a large-scale, site-specific public artwork by Rondinone that has been nearly five years in the making. The installation, comprised of seven individual towering sculptures, is situated on the far southern end of Las Vegas Boulevard along Interstate 15, approximately a half hour from downtown Las Vegas. Positioned within the Ivanpah Valley and surrounded by mountains, the piece will be on view for two years beginning May 11, 2016.

Mediating between geological formations and abstract compositions, Rondinone’s Seven Magic Mountains consists of locally-sourced limestone boulders stacked vertically in groups ranging between three and six. Each stone boasts a different fluorescent color; each individual totem stands between thirty and thirty-five feet high.

The artwork extends Rondinone’s long-running interest in natural phenomena and their reformulation in art. The titles and forms of his paintings and sculptures have frequently evoked primordial phenomena such as air, moons, the sun, and the cosmos. Referring concurrently to the natural world, romanticism, and existentialism, Seven Magic Mountains encapsulates a sort of mental trinity that has underpinned the artist’s work for more than two decades. In a new iteration of themes and materials, Seven Magic Mountains creates a sense of romantic minimalism.

“Seven Magic Mountains elicits continuities and solidarities between human and nature, artificial and natural, then and now,” states Rondinone.

Located a short distance from Nevada’s legendary Jean Dry Lake where Jean Tinguely and Michael Heizer created significant sculptures, Seven Magic Mountains is one of the largest land-based art installations in the United States completed in over 40 years. The work pays homage to the history of Land Art while also offering a contemporary critique of the simulacra in nearby Las Vegas.

Seven Magic Mountains is produced by Art Production Fund, New York and Nevada Museum of Art, Reno. Located approximately 10 miles south of the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and St. Rose Parkway in Henderson, Nevada, the two-year installation will be on view beginning May 11, 2016.

Visit the Seven Magic Mountains website for more info.

Ugo Rondinone: Seven Magic Mountains, Las Vegas, Nevada, 2016. Photo by Gianfranco Gorgoni. Courtesy of Art Production Fund and Nevada Museum of Art. 

 

GETTING THERE
From Las Vegas: Follow I-15 S to Sloan Rd (exit 25). Turn left (east) to Las Vegas Boulevard. Drive approximately 7 miles south on Las Vegas Blvd. and the artwork will appear on your left (east).

From Los Angeles: Drive north on I-15 to Jean, NV (exit 12).  Turn right (east) on NV-161 toward Las Vegas Blvd. Drive approximately 5 miles north on Las Vegas Blvd. and the artwork will appear on your right (east).

UGO RONDINONE 
GOOD EVENING BEAUTIFUL BLUE
THE BASS MUSEUM OF ART

OCTOBER 29, 2017 - FEBRUARY 19, 2018
RESOURCE | MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA

Installation view of Ugo Rondinone's exhibition good evening beautiful blue. Photography by Zachary Balber. Courtesy of the artist and The Bass, Miami Beach.

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.

Marking its first appearance in the U.S. in nearly two decades, the final gallery presents an immersive six-channel video installation titled it’s late It’s late and the wind carries a faint sound as it moves through the trees. It could be anything. The jingling of little bells perhaps, or the tiny flickering out of tiny lives. I stroll down the sidewalk and close my eyes and open them and wait for my mind to go perfectly blank. Like a room no one has ever entered, a room without any doors or windows. A place where nothing happens. (1998). The entire room is given a blue tint by an illuminated ceiling, as projected slow-motion loops of six men and six women, alone in their frames, perform an unresolved gesture without acknowledging the viewer, like opening an apartment door, or floating (or sinking) in water. The final line of the work’s narrative title …A place where nothing happens. aptly describes the cyclical loop of movements performed by each figure, resulting in a thought provoking and introspective space. Together, the selection of works places the visitor in an arena of contemplation and introspection, confronted by installations that stimulate self-reflection.

Courtesy of The Bass Museum of Art.

Installation view of Ugo Rondinone's exhibition good evening beautiful blue. Photography by Zachary Balber. Courtesy of the artist and The Bass, Miami Beach.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ugo Rondinone (b. 1964, Brunnen, Switzerland) is a mixed-media artist who lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include: the world just makes me laugh at Berkeley Art Museum, let’s start this day again at Contemporary Art Center (Cincinnati), giorni d’oro + notti d’argento at Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Seven Magic Mountains organized by Art Production Fund and the Nevada Museum of Art (Nevada), vocabulary of solitude at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen (Rotterdam), i love john giorno at Palais de Tokyo (Paris), artists and poets at Vienna Secession (Vienna), breathe walk die at Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai), human nature organized by Public Art Fund in Rockefeller Plaza, (New York), we run through a desert on burning feet, all of us are glowing our faces look twisted at Art Institute of Chicago, thank you silence at M-Museum Leuven (Belgium). His work is in the collections of MoMA (New York), ICA Boston, SFMOMA, Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), The Bass (Miami Beach) and Dallas Museum of Art, among others. 
ugorondinone.com

ABOUT ART PRODUCTION FUND
Art Production Fund (APF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to commissioning and producing ambitious public art projects, reaching new audiences and expanding awareness through contemporary art.
artproductionfund.org

ABOUT NEVADA MUSEUM OF ART
Nevada Museum of Art is the only AAM accredited art museum in Nevada. A private, non-profit organization founded in 1931, the Reno-based institution is supported by its membership as well as sponsorships, gifts and grants. Through its permanent collections, original exhibitions and programming, and Museum School, the Nevada Museum of Art provides the opportunity for people to engage with a range of art and education experiences. Its Center for Art + Environment, is an internationally-recognized research center dedicated to supporting the practice, study, and awareness of creative interactions between people and their environments. The Center houses unique archive materials from more than 1,000 artists working on all seven continents, including Cape Farewell, Michael Heizer, Walter de Maria, Lita Albuquerque, Burning Man, Center for Land Use Interpretation, and Rondinone’s Seven Magic Mountains project.
nevadaart.org

ABOUT THE BASS MUSEUM OF ART
The Bass is Miami Beach’s contemporary art museum. Focusing on exhibitions of international contemporary art, The Bass presents mid-career and established artists reflecting the spirit and international character of Miami Beach. The Bass seeks to expand the interpretation of contemporary art by incorporating disciplines of contemporary culture, such as design, fashion and architecture, into the exhibition program. Recognized for organizing the first solo museum exhibitions in the United States of international artists such as Erwin Wurm, The Bass also presents major exhibitions by influential artists such as El Anatsui, Isaac Julien, Eve Sussman, and Piotr Uklański. The exhibition program encompasses a wide range of media and artistic points of view that bring new thought to the diverse cultural context of Miami Beach. Central to the museum’s mission, The Bass maintains a vigorous education program for lifelong learning and visitors of all ages. The Bass IDEAS education initiative uses art as a catalyst for creativity and positive growth, especially in the area of early childhood education. The active outreach program, Creativity in the Community, takes The Bass IDEAS off-site by engaging families and their children in Miami-Dade County neighborhoods with the most challenged access to art. The Bass continues to incorporate its permanent collection. A new gallery will be dedicated to displays of the museum’s permanent collection, featuring a series of rotating artist projects that present works in dialogue with the collection.

2100 Collins Avenue
Miami Beach, Florida
thebass.org

RESOURCE
A posting of any length based primarily on submissions but also compiled through research by The Rib. Resource shares press releases, exhibition details, photo essays, interviews, podcasts, and other original content generated by galleries or alternative sources. Resource establishes a critical dialogue or discourse for artists and institutions by simply sharing information in a network connecting networks.