LA County Museum of Art presents Random International's Rain Room

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and RH, Restoration Hardware announce the West Coast debut of Rain Room (2012), an immersive work by the London-based artist collective Random International, Art Daily reports. Within this large-scale installation, water falls continuously to create a cacophonous interior downpour that pauses wherever a human body is detected. Upon entering this surreal environment, visitors can move through this space freely, protected from the water falling all around them.

Random International uses science and technology to create artworks that aim to question and challenge human experience within a machine-led world, engaging viewers through explorations of behavior and natural phenomena. Rain Room is on display at LACMA courtesy of RH, Restoration Hardware and RH Contemporary Art, and presented by Hyundai Motor Company.

"Random International produces artworks at the intersection of art and technology. This makes Rain Room a perfect fit for LACMA as we re-initiate aspects of our acclaimed Art and Technology project, which is approaching its 50th anniversary," said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director. "In Rain Room, the artists who are part of the Random International collective have created a wondrous experience, achieved in an environmentally sensitive manner."

“Rain Room is a remarkable work of art, whose creative courage and extraordinary concept have captivated audiences around the world,” said RH Chairman and CEO, Gary Friedman. “After Rain Room’s overwhelming success at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, we are honored to bring the work of these visionary artists to LACMA.”

Random International’s Rain Room is part of LACMA’s ongoing Art + Technology initiative, a series of contemporary programs that support artists’ experiments with emerging technology. Inspired by the museum’s original Art and Technology program (1967–71), this reinvigorated initiative has celebrated several milestones to date, including the opening of the Art +Technology Lab in 2013. The Art +Technology Lab offers public programs that address the intersection of these two fields and champions technology-based artist projects through grants and in-kind support from leading technology companies. In March 2015, LACMA and Hyundai Motor announced a 10-year partnership dedicated to exploring the convergence of art and technology. The Hyundai Project: Art and Technology at LACMA supports the museum’s art and technology initiatives in the areas of exhibitions, acquisitions, and programming through 2024. Rain Room is the first exhibition to be presented under The Hyundai Project partnership.

Founded in 2005, Random International is a collaborative studio for experimental practice within contemporary art. Taking science as a means to develop a new material vocabulary, their work invites consideration of the man/machine relationship with the viewer as an active participant. In the decade following the studio's inception, the focus of Random International’s artistic practice has continuously evolved and today encompasses sculpture, performance, and installation on an architectural scale. The studio is currently featured in the group exhibition FOMO at Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille (through August 2, 2015). Lunds Konsthall in Lund, Sweden, last year exhibited a solo presentation of Random International’s work titled Studies In Motion. In 2013, Random International’s Tower: Instant Structure for Schacht XII was shown at World Heritage Zollverein as part of the Ruhrtriennale festival. The studio’s sculpture Fly was premiered at the fourth Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2011, and their work Swarm Study / III is on permanent display at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.