Two shows at PS1

My parents, my brother and I, all in New York concurrently (not one of us lives there, though my parents did in the metrozoic era), headed out last weekend to PS1, the MOMA's outpost at a converted school in Queens. It's in a neighborhood full of empty lots, gas stations, strange old warehouses, and the occasional remnant of an incongruously elegant set of row houses. Even on a perfect breezy May afternoon the gravel approach to the museum was hot, dusty, and, in my dad's words, "bakey;" the Paragon Oil and Burners sign painted onto a huge old factory in the distance seemed oddly appropriate.

We made it to the tail end of two exhibits: Reprocessing Reality, a Swiss-sponsored international group show, and Thirteen, a collection of Chinese videos.

Both shows got my hopes up early by featuring what looked like a promising treatment of maps. I love maps! The first glimpse of Thirteen, a sort of teaser by the main entrance, showed a black-and-white Chinese map (I'd never seen a map with place names in Chinese before!) punctuated by musical staves and flickering red and grey dots. Meanwhile, over at Reprocessing Reality, several views of a globe suspended in the middle of the room were being projected out on the wall. As for the rest of the shows: well, you'll have to read the articles to find out more.

What lasted most clearly in my memory about the whole excursion -- the kind of hilarious and wonderful detail that endears a museum to you even more than the unexpectedly upbeat staff and the functioning bathroom in which the stall doors trigger surprise video -- was a tiny mousehole my brother spotted near the baseboards. Next to it, discreetly and realistically, someone had painted a mouse.