Wall of wonder

Installation of colored mirrors at the ICA is meditation on the nature of time

CHARLES MAYERUgo Rondinone's installation, ''clockwork for oracles,'' features 52 wood-framed tinted mirrors mounted over whitewashed newspapers. (CHARLES MAYER)

Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone has transformed the light-filled lobby of the Institute of Contemporary Art with an installation of wood-framed tinted mirrors that is nothing if not pretty.

The 52 mirrors, each a different size and color, cover the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall from top to bottom. The work is called, after a line in a poem by Edmond Jabès, "clockwork for oracles."

Mounted over whitewashed pages from recent editions of The Boston Globe, the mirrors, framed like French windows, reflect the distant city and airy industrial expanses around the ICA.

The effect is delightful, and deliberately lulling. You find yourself wanting to linger. A space that was already beautiful but underutilized (the Art Wall is the only reason to spend time in it, unless you enjoy scanning lists of benefactors) becomes a kind of visual honey trap, interrupting the usual progression from entrance to ticket counter to upstairs exhibits.

Does it mean anything?

Apparently. But I got the feeling that its function in the world was less to be a magnet for particular meanings than a sort of contemplative kaleidoscope. Toss a thought at it, and see what pretty semblance of sense is reflected back. . .

Is the number of mirrors, for instance (52), supposed to make us think of a deck of playing cards, and hence the workings of chance?

Actually no, says the press release, it's the weeks of the year. (The installation will be on display for precisely one year.)

Rondinone has long been interested in elapsing time, and in the idea that when our experience of time slows down, the impulse to see the world in terms of measurement and scales of value dissolves.

Does the work successfully articulate this attractive but rather abstract idea? Not really. But it scarcely matters. We may be intrigued by the contrast between the whitewashed newspapers (newspapers representing the clockwork advance of time, the manufacturing of value) and the colored mirrors (suggesting a sort of suspended, Zen-like present tense). But the work does not exactly press these sorts of musings upon us. We are just as likely to see "clockwork for oracles" as a boldly effective architectural intervention, or a delightful interior design feature.

What matters is that it seduces us into slowing down and spending time not only in its presence but in the presence of our own thoughts - whatever they may be.

Rondinone is a fascinating case in today's art world. He and fellow Swiss artist (and sometime collaborator) Urs Fischer have carved out glittering international careers by, above all, asserting their right to do whatever the hell they like.

Rondinone doesn't seem to mind playing the game, providing thoughtful artist statements and in other ways oiling the art-world machine. But what really strikes you about each new project he embarks on is its absolute freedom from constraints of style or concept. He has made absurdist sculptures of clowns in fetishistic outfits lying torpidly on the floor (still my favorite Rondinone works). He made a rainbow colored sign spelling out the words "HELL YES!" for the facade of New York's New Museum. And he has made a host of installations of indubitable ambition, inventiveness, and humor, but consistently elusive meanings.

At times his work can seem trashy and slight. At other times it seems gorgeously lyrical and poetic. Rondinone seems to relish the freedom to indulge either impulse.

"Clockwork for oracles" is little more than a visually delightful, modestly poetic response to a question that was evidently put to him by the ICA a little while back: "What would you like to do with this wall?" But I for one will be glad to see it as I return to the ICA over the coming 52 weeks.

Sebastian Smee can be reached at ssmee@globe.com