Here's a riddle for you: April showers bring May flowers, but what happens if the 'Rain Room' at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art stops pouring well ahead of that mythically damp month?
You're correct: A lot of people wish the popular installation, which simulates an indoor storm, would go a bit longer.
Those wishes apparently are coming true, for the Miracle Mile-based art institution announced on Wednesday, Jan. 13 that the 'Rain Room' will drizzle on for seven more weeks. Right into, you guessed it, April, though not the entire month, do note: The final day for the piece to pour is Sunday, April 24.
The installation, which was created by the UK outfit Random International, appeared at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City to great acclaim, before sopping its way west, to LACMA.
Tickets began to go fast for the fall opening, with weekends filling up as quick as a cistern. One reason, beyond all of the big (big big) buzz? Only 15 or so people are welcomed into the 'Rain Room' at any one time, with a maximum of seven to eight people being permitted to walk into the downpour.
And you really do need to brave-up and step into the seemingly wall-like shower, for here's the twist everyone who has heard of the room of rain knows: The sensors detect where you are and the rain stops, at least overhead. All around you? It's still raining. (The water falls into a grate below, for recycling back through, lest you were concerned it would start rising to your ankles during your visit.)
It's a ticket apart from normal LACMA admission, so you do need to book in advance, or try your chances on the day of your museum visit, though if that day-of is a Saturday or Sunday, look deep into your heart to see if that's the kind of chance you want to take. Even deeper: You know inside that weekends and the 'Rain Room' have proven as busy as busy gets.
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You also likely know, by now, through hearsay and scuttlebutt, that if you move too quickly you'll get wet. That's a given.
Also good to know? Lighter-hued clothing is a bit easier to see, if you're going to take some snapshots. And please, you probably are: 'Rain Room' and social media are as BFF-y as an art installation and sites of a share/feedback nature can be.
El Niño has whetted -- er, wetted? -- our rain-loving appetites; now, step inside an interior torrent, through late April.
