Rain Room is a hugely popular site-specific art-and-tech installation from London-based studio rAndom International in which visitors slowly walk through a room of falling water, yet (almost) never get wet. It drew long lines at the Barbican in London in 2012 and at MoMA in 2013, and now, Rain Room finally makes its debut in a place where rain is most needed: the West Coast.
Opening this weekend at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the installation is not only set to attract thousands of visitors, it’s also poised to generate a serious dialogue about the drought in California and social responsibility in the face of dwindling water supplies. At the press conference for Rain Room on Wednesday, LACMA’s director Michael Govan didn’t shy away from the issue.
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Rain Room at LACMA by Tanja M. Laden
“Everyone will ask about the Rain Room and water,” said Govan. “This Rain Room actually uses a tiny amount of water. Just so you know, it’s about 528 gallons. And to put that into perspective, an American family of four uses 400 gallons of water a day. So we’re producing that much for the entire artwork. It’s constantly recycled through the run of the show.”
The exhibit is part of LACMA’s groundbreaking Art + Technology program, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2017. It’s on display thanks to RH, Restoration Hardware, and RH Contemporary Art, and LACMA’s ten-year partnership with Hyundai Motor Company, which also seeks to bring recognition to historical and contemporary Korean art to the public. All in all, it’s an extensive and expensive collaboration to facilitate artwork using water, injection-molded tiles, solenoid valves, pressure regulators, custom software, 3D-tracking cameras, steel beams, a water management system, and grated floors.
The press conference for Rain Room also attracted the creators of the art installation, a pair of London-based visionaries from Germany: co-founders and co-directors of rAndom International, Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass. Both men appeared visibly shocked when Govan announced that in advance of Rain Room’s official opening November 1, there have been 17,000 people who already made reservations to see the artwork.
Rain Room at LACMA by Tanja M. Laden
“I understand this is the most requests we’ve ever had for a ticketed exhibition, certainly since I’ve been here, in the last decade,” Govan said.
The buzz is likely due to Rain Room’s past popularity, but in Southern California, there’s something especially salient about navigating a room full of falling water while trying to stay dry. Watching people creep across Rain Room, they’re at first trepidatious, walking slowly, distrustfully—visibly wondering if they’ll get wet. The notion evolves into a feeling of ease as they begin to embark through the room, their arms outstretched.
As a native Angeleno, I couldn’t help but think of the drought outside, and the simultaneous threat and promise of El Niño, which periodically brings massive amounts of rain to SoCal. I thought about our own natural disasters: the existing drought as well as looming earthquakes, brush fires, and mudslides. Hopefully, Rain Room will be something of a rain dance, heralding actual water filtered through the dusty detritus of smoggy skies, nevertheless still making things grow.
As I was leaving Rain Room, a security guard who let me hang out along the perimeter and take pictures bemoaned the side effect of frizzy hair and sense of perpetual dampness. “The only thing is that kind of moist, kind of cold feeling,” she remarked, making a face. When I mentioned we needed rain, her face brightened and she said, “It’s coming.”
Rain Room is on view at LACMA through March 6, 2016.
Related Links:
Walking Through Rain Without Getting Wet: MoMA’s Rain Room
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