Random International, Rain Room (2012).
Photo: Karlie Kloss, via Instagram.
Don’t even bother trying to get a ticket to Sunday’s opening day of the Rain Room at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Weekend slots to see the installation from London-based arts collective Random International, presented by RH Restoration Hardware, are already booked until January.
At press time, the first available slot listed on the LACMA website was November 30. According to the Los Angeles Times, interested parties looking to book by phone have been experiencing hold times of up to an hour.
The dramatically-lit room, a bright spotlight shining in one corner of the otherwise blackened room, asks visitors to enter a torrential downpour, trusting to science and art that they won’t get wet, even as the storm continues unabated.
Random International, Rain Room (2012).
Photo: Random International.
The show’s popularity should come as no surprise, given how wildly successful the Rain Room was at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2013, the lines stretching around the block throughout its eight-week run. A social media sensation, the exhibition has been tagged over 20,000 times on Instagram, and remains among the most widely-shared art shows on the app.
The Rain Room‘s appeal is a proven commodity, but what really makes the work such a hot ticket is the limited admission policy: Only seven people can be in the room at any given time, and visits can be no longer than 15 minutes.
As frustrating as this might be to potential visitors, this is all to their benefit: Sensors that detect the presence of visitors stop the rain above them, creating a six-foot wide dry spot. Too many people, and there would be no rain to speak of.
Random International, Rain Room (2012).
Photo: Felix Clay.
As for those disturbed by such a watery exhibition given the severity of California’s ongoing drought, the Rain Room runs on a closed loop system, and the 330-gallon tank requires minimal replenishment.
Random International’s Rain Room is on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 1, 2015–March 6, 2016.