MoMA PS1

Doesn’t it always feel like Manhattan with all its plenty blocks the rest of the boroughs when you think New York? So today it was a conscious attempt at Queens.

Charlotte and her friend Bea were going to another Broadway show and could use a ride and we could use a day out.
Their stop was “The Play that Goes Wrong,” our stop was MoMA PS1 in Long Island City.

MoMa PS1 is an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art situated in the former Public School One so it once was a school house. Founded by a group organizing exhibition in abandoned spaces of New York City it houses quite edgy contemporary works.

The centerpiece here is a 115-year-old boiler covered with gold leaf. This was a project of an emergency room doctor who used his bodily fluids — sweat, saliva, semen, and more — to adhere gold to the furnace. Looks like quite a lot of fluid went into this process.

And the end of this tunnel, there’s a square to create which the artist used all the crayons from one box to cover a small surface. It looks brown from the distance but as you get closer, you start seeing different colors on ridges of the stone.

Here at the bottom of one staircase, is a tribute to New York City’s main inhabitants.

Interestingly, this hole in the wall is right next to the Exit sign. At first, it comes as a damage time did to the old building. Nope. It’s another artistic expression. I’m not sure if the Exit sign was a coincidence or purpose but this hole is an exit out of the womb and how a baby first sees the light of the world. During the construction — or destruction, in this case — the bricks created the shape of stairs that worked for the idea.

Meeting. This is a hole in the ceiling — no, not a skylight — into the outside world surrounded by the wooden pews to sit on  and contemplate. Which is kind of cool. The hole is gets covered from the snow and rain but other than that it always remains open. The wood is in perfect condition and, since 1986, no bird has ever flown in.

The art of the staircases. An artist wrote a fairy tale about two lovers who got separated when she turned into a tree and he turned into a spaceship. Here, he illustrated the story. The birds were carrying messages between the two unfortunate souls until the spaceship crashed into a tree, the lovers turned back to normal selves, and lived happily ever after.