Liquid Sky Washes Out P.S.1

(left) The Liquid Sky entry proposed by Ball-Nogues for the 2007 Young Architects Program, and (right) Liquid Sky on opening day.

©2007 The Museum of Modern Art (left); Jessica Sheridan (right)

I have mixed feelings about this year’s MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program installation, Liquid Sky by Los Angeles-based Ball-Nogues. While it engages the senses and alludes to the sea — appropriate for a “beach” — the piece as a whole feels unfinished.

Dispersed throughout the main courtyard, six “towers” constructed from untreated utility poles act as supports for “community hammocks” while providing an armature for red-tinted Mylar “petals.” Water shoots out of the top of the towers sprinkling visitors below. Two platforms are situated on opposite ends of the adjacent outdoor gallery with a Mylar-netted Droopscape stretched between. Above the platforms are troughs of water that periodically tip over and drench bystanders.

While the elements of water and sand are included every year (this is the eighth year for the program), Liquid Sky amplifies the beach-like experience. The wood of the utility poles, ropes used for the hammocks, and even the existing gravel in the courtyard remind me of boat docks. As the Mylar blows in the wind, the sound references kites and sails in the wind. When the water hits the Mylar and the troughs douse the platforms with water, I think of ocean waves.

The Mylar petals are supposed to form “a tensioned surface that reconfigures the horizon, cresting above the walls of the P.S.1 courtyard,” according to the Liquid Sky press release, and this is where I feel the work falls short. The petals at the towers are in tension, but they do not reach the perimeter walls, nor do they reach the center of the courtyard to complete a canopy. It seems as if the design team ran out of material. The bottom-most petals wilt with the weight of the water that has been sprinkled on them. There is little shelter from the sun where there could have been a fully shaded field of color.

In 2005, Ball-Nogues designed a summer-long installation in a courtyard in Los Angeles called Maximilian’s Schell Installation. A yellow Mylar canopy stretched over a plaza with a central “vortex” reaching down in the center. From the photographs online, Liquid Sky appears to have very similar goals (and a similar description). I feel that my criticism of the work was resolved in a previous iteration of a similar project. This leads me to think that perhaps the design team did not have enough time to finish, and maybe they will add more material over the next few days. As the installation is on view through September 28, I hope to return later in the summer to a more complete project.