Visitors can magically walk through “Rain Room” at MoMA without getting wet (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Museum of Modern Art
West 54th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Through July 28
Museum admission: $25 ($12 can be applied to the purchase of a film ticket within thirty days)
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.momaps1.org/expo1
rain room slideshow
If only it were so easy to control the weather. In the lot adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA is presenting rAndom International’s “Rain Room,” an immersive, interactive installation in which visitors walk through falling water without getting wet. A series of sensors detect body motion, creating a barrier as people move slowly through the space, the spigots above them shutting off as they pass beneath them. A penetrating white light shoots through the rain, resulting in marvelous shadows and other very cool visual imagery. (Note that MoMA advises not to wear “dark, shiny, reflective fabrics, fabrics made of raincoat material, or skinny high heels”; also, if you move fast, the sensors won’t pick you up as well and you will get a little wet.) Only ten people are allowed inside at a time, and they are encouraged to stay for no more than ten to fifteen minutes, as the lines have been ridiculously long, stretching four hours and more. Members can start going in at 9:30, with nonmembers filing in at 10:30. In a wonderfully wacky little twist, on especially hot, sunny days MoMA hands out umbrellas to people on line, not to protect them from the rain in the exhibit, but to guard them against the beating sun as they stand outside absorbing the heat.
To accommodate the large crowds, MoMA has also instituted a faster-moving viewing line, allowing people to go inside and see “Rain Room” from the sides but not actually walk under the water and get the full experience. Although it is gimmicky, “Rain Room” is a lot of fun, too, offering visitors a unique way to kind of part the Red Sea themselves. It takes on even more meaning as climate change has been leading to dangerously unpredictable weather patterns that humanity has no control over, with many scientists claiming that it might be too late to save the earth as we know it. The U.S. premiere of “Rain Room,” which continues through July 28 as part of MoMA’s expansive “EXPO 1: New York” at PS1, will be followed this fall by “Autonomy,” a related show in RH Contemporary Art’s new gallery in Chelsea, owned by Restoration Hardware. “EXPO 1: New York,” the theme of which is “Dark Optimism,” runs through September 2 in Queens, featuring environmentally conscious works by such artists as Olafur Eliasson, Meg Webster, Adrián Villar Rojas, Marie Lorenz, and Ansel Adams as well as special “Speculations” talks through July 28 with Lynn Hershman Leeson, Otto Piene, and others.