Bass museum is finally reopening - with a clown exhibit that will haunt your nightmares

The Bass is back with a new look, a shorter name and a clown installation that’s giving us the serious creeps just in time for Halloween.

After two years and a $12 million revamp, the museum – now just The Bass – reopens Oct. 29 with several new features:

• New gallery space, a bigger lobby and a staircase replace the ramp that originally ran through the middle of the museum.
• The once-open patio is now a glassed-in area for installations and events.
• A bigger educational area comes with a second classroom and a multimedia lab, plus a new conference room with built-in projection and sound.
• The new main entrance faces Collins Park and Collins Avenue.

So far, so good. But what worries us are all these clowns.

Ostensibly, this is part of the installation “good evening beautiful blue” by Ugo Rondinone. But, I mean, we all saw “It,” right?  This can’t be good.

Say, is that clown really sleeping?

No. He’s just waiting for the most terrifying time to open his glowing evil eyes.

There are, of course, other installations at The Bass that are really cool and aren’t quite as terrifying, like the Botticelli’s 1492 “Coronation of the Virgin” and the museum’s Rubens, its El Greco and its Van Dyck, which will share gallery space with rotating modern artists. And  the lobby installation by Pascale Marthine Tayou is extremely welcoming – it features the word “welcome” in different languages.

But let’s be honest: It should probably say “beware of clowns.”

Read more about the reopening of The Bass.

This story was originally published October 24, 2017 at 12:10 AM.