Culture For The Non-Cultured

Ah, just came back from visiting P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, the museum in Long Island City, and I loved it! My favorite exhibits are interactive and whimsical and I had a ball.

There was James Turrell’s Meeting, a serene room with benches all around it and a perfect square cut through the ceiling. I was there on a Saturday night, so the square was opened; I lay on the floor and stared straight through to the sky.

There were also several exhibits by Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, who is now one of my favorite artists. One of his exhibits was Beauty, a misty waterfall you could jump through, which was quite exciting. I also saw Take Your Time, where you lay on a floor surrounded by other people doing the same thing and look up at a large, slowly rotating mirrored ceiling. This gave me ample opportunity to engage in people-watching, one of my all-time favorite activities, without fear that anyone would catch me. People are cute when they’re looking at themselves: lots of childish laughter, poking each other, wiggling, staring.

I didn’t have my camera :(, but I will try to describe what I saw out the window overlooking the courtyard of P.S.1. On Saturday night, there’s music outdoors. So, there were these undulating bodies all crowded together. Behind and above them, there was P.F.1 (Public Farm 1), a fully-functioning, 30 feet high “urban farm,” made of plants, vegetables, and flowers. People were dancing with fervor in the aisle of the urban farm. And, in the distance, rising behind the dancers and the farm, 5 Pointz, the Institute of Higher Burnin’, a wall of legal graffiti art.

And behind that, a storage facility. This is, after all, New York, and not everything can be artsy fartsy.

P.S.1 is also one of the most interesting buildings ever. It used to be a school, and there’s all kinds of art in all kinds of nooks and crannies: stairwells, elevators, bathrooms.

So, you should make a visit there. It’s really easy to get to in Long Island City …