Call it the most popular rain in town.
The Rain Room at the Museum of Modern Art is the art sensation of the summer, with people standing on line up to eight hours to enter the installation. And at the Guggenheim, there are also huge lines to see light artist James Turrell.
That brings the question... are museums exploiting the public or are lines unavoidable to see popular art?
Art critic Deborah Solomon says there are some shows worth standing on line for, like Turrell's, but not the Rain Room. "It's more like a Disney ride," she said.
Solomon explained that the Rain Room is part of a PS1's show called Expo One, which is about ecology. But the fact that the piece is in Manhattan, and not at PS1 in Queens is a problem. "Removed from all ecological issues, it really just becomes a spectacle that serves no purpose as far as I can see," she said.
Click on the audio link above to listen to the whole interview with Solomon and chime in with a comment below: Are you ok waiting on long lines to see art? Or do you think museums should be practicing more crowd control?
