'Hide & Seek' Coming to MoMA PS1

John Hill

6. March 2018

Image: Dream the Combine, courtesy of MoMA

Dream the Combine has been named the 2018 winner of The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1’s annual Young Architects Program with Hide & Seek, which will be on display at the museum's Long Island City, Queens, location this summer.

Dream the Combine is the Minneapolis practice of artists and architects Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers. They describe their work as "site-specific installations exploring metaphor, imaginary environments, and perceptual uncertainties that cast doubt on our known understanding of the world." The same appears to be the case with Hide & Seek, whose design was carried out with frequent collaborator Clayton Binkley of Arup, and which MoMA PS1 describes in a press release:

Inspired by the crowd, the street, and the jostle of relationships found in the contemporary city, Hide & Seek enables surprising connections throughout the adjoining courtyards of MoMA PS1 and the surrounding streets. Each of the horizontal structures contains two inward-facing, gimbaled mirrors suspended from a frame. The mirrors move in the wind or with human touch, permitting dislocating views and unique spatial relationships across the space that foster unexpected interactions. As the vanishing points disappear into the depths of the mirrors, the illusion of space expands beyond the physical boundaries of the Museum and bends into new forms, creating visual connections within the courtyard and onto the streets outside.

Mirrors are a common element in the work of Newsom and Carruthers, such as Longing, Clearing, and To a Constellation.

Image: Dream the Combine, courtesy of MoMA

While recent YAP installations have focused on technology and materials (e.g. Jenny Sabin's Lumen, David Benjamin's Hy-Fi, and HWKN's Wendy), Dream the Combine's design reorients things toward the experience of visitors to MoMA PS1 and revelers at their summer Warm Up concert series.

Hide & Seek will be on display from June to September in the courtyard of MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens.