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MoMA PS1 at Long Island City, Queens, New York
The city’s getting hotter like a country in decline
Summer 2016
This year’s Warm Up canopy is Weaving the Courtyard by Escobedo Soliz Studio and it’s well, not terrible. I take that back. It’s terrible as a canopy because it’s not actually a canopy. It is hot as hell in Long Island City in July and August, so just looking up at a bunch of admittedly pretty color ropes isn’t going to do a damn thing. Aesthetically it is interesting, and the shadows are nice, but it is not (and I repeat not) a canopy.
Summer 2015
This year’s Warm Up canopy is called COSMO by Andres Jaque and it’s supposed to filter water or something. One thing it really doesn’t do is provide any shade (which most canopies are supposed do), but worse than that it feels like an afterthought in the courtyard. Previous canopies were interactive and a magnet for the Warm Up crowds, this time they all pass it by to stand in an empty courtyard or up front by the music. If you can you should see it for yourself, but if your schedule just doesn’t allow it, there’s a pretty good chance that next year’s canopy will be better.
Summer 2014
This year’s Warm Up design is called Hy-Fy by a group of people that think it’s a good idea to call themselves The Living. It’s a tri tower of grown bricks (mushrooms and corn stalks) that’s topped off with the molds used to create the bricks, coated in what 3M claims to be the most reflective film ever created. It is pretty reflective so who am I to question 3M.
I try every year to go see the PS1 summer installation and needed to see this one twice to understand whether I liked it or not. One of those times was at Warm Up (the annual dance/stand around party in PS1’s courtyard) and the other was on an off day, when PS1 reclaims it’s creepy, haunted schoolhouse vibe. The truth is that Hy-Fy creates some wonderful space inside and the organic bricks (which you could probably poke through if you really wanted to) create some really fun effects. That said, Hy-Fy is an awful installation for Warm Up. It’s too small, it doesn’t engage the space, it ignores the other courtyards and it feels more like it’s in the way than that it’s the reason to go to Warm Up. If you decide to go see it this year, skip the crowds and go on an off day and (like me) start looking forward to Warm Up next year instead.
