Hell, Yes!

Large-format hardcover 31 x 24 cm, unpaginated (180 pages), copiously illustrated, pictorial front endpapers, NOT ex-library. Weight over 1.27kg. Very good clean condition with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps. Issued without a dust jacket. -- This out-of-print book by the Swiss-born, New York-based artist Ugo Rondinone is a conceptual extension of his installation practice, situated within his long-running engagement with the diary as an artistic form, which he has pursued across painting, drawing, text and photography since the early 1990s. It is structured around monochromatic double-spread photographs, ordered into colour-themed sequences: red, yellow-purple, grey, blue, purple, brown, and yellow. These visuals focus on the vertical forms of trees within a snowy woodland, rendered through deliberately expressive techniques to create a dreamlike atmosphere of the surreal-synthetic coloured world. A recurring solitary female figure is depicted wandering among the trees, her back frequently turned to the lens, emphasising a sense of anonymity and internalised observation. Interspersed throughout the visual cycles are short, framed textual fragments, such as 'the streets are deserted and there is no wind while I am walking home and I feel as if I'm being watched, followed by the lunatic gaze of tiny beings that live in the cracks of houses', which contrast the natural imagery with a distinct sense of urban, existential anxiety. This interplay between the forest landscape and the intrusive nature of thought is a hallmark of the artist's exploration of the 'melancholy sublime'. The photographic sections are followed by 23 pages of text consisting of short diary entries grouped by year from 1992 to 1995. …