LACMA Acquires ‘Rain Room’ Installation For Permanent Collection

Photo by Navid Baraty/LAist
Angelenos, prepare your Instagram feeds: Rain Room is here to stay. On Friday, Art Newspaper announced that LACMA had acquired the crowd-pleasing interactive installation, which lets visitors travel through a downpour without ever getting wet, for the museum’s permanent collection. The approximately 528 gallons of water are recycled and reused within a self-contained system, according to a LACMA blog post.
According to Art Newspaper, the acquisition was a gift from Restoration Hardware, the same home furnishings company that lent the installation to LACMA in 2015. The first edition of the large-scale light and sound installation created by art collective Random International was commissioned by Restoration Hardware in 2012.
“The response to the work in Los Angeles has been tremendous over the past year. The public here has come to ‘own’ the Rain Room , so it’s great that it will stay in the city,” Michael Govan, director of LACMA, told Art Newspaper, who report that nearly 190,000 visitors have experienced Rain Room at the museum during its extended 15-month run. The installation temporarily closed at LACMA on January 22, with future exhibitions to be determined.
“After Rain Room’s incredible success at MoMA in New York and its unprecedented 15-month run at LACMA, we are proud to donate the piece to LACMA’s collection, giving it a permanent home and continuing to inspire those who encounter it,” Restoration Hardware Chairman and CEO Gary Friedman said in a statement.
Article courtesy of LAist. ​