Mercer Labs, an immersive museum, opens in Manhattan
A cave-like room full of silk hydrangeas is among the installations at Mercer Labs in Manhattan. Credit: Newsday/Scott Vogel
Mercer Labs, which opened in Manhattan’s Wall Street area in March, calls itself a “museum of art and technology.” Others have dubbed it an “immersive installation” or a “techy adult playground.” My own assessment — admittedly less sophisticated — is that it's a place that costs a jaw-dropping $52 to visit, which is no knock. Truth is, I had a terrific, um, jaw-dropping time wandering from room to room, 15 in all, never knowing what to expect from “Limitless,” the museum’s inaugural exhibition by its big-thinking co-founder, Israeli artist Roy Nachum. I only wish that the price of immersion wasn’t so steep.
Installations at Mercer Labs, a new immersive attraction in Manhattan. Credit: Scott Vogel
One room dedicated to floral excess is a cavelike space with walls and ceiling positively dripping with silk hydrangeas. Another is a gigantic space onto which are projected scenes of waves crashing, what appears to be oil rigs blinking, and a number of vague, if stirring, proclamations and calls for technology to tackle the problems it has caused. Balancing out all the headiness, however, is a pair of welcome whimsical elements, several two-person swings suspended from the ceiling and a foam rubber-like crag on which one might lie and contemplate what sort of messages Nachum might be intending.
Next comes giant photorealistic portraits by Nachum himself, each of sight-impaired subjects. After spending a year or more creating the exquisitely detailed portraits, the artist invited the subjects themselves to apply painterly touches to the pictures. Their daubs and brushstrokes, which at first seem like desecrations, are instead chefs’ kisses of a kind, offering an interesting meditation on what it means to see and be seen.
A robot draws pictures in sand at Mercer Labs in Manhattan. Credit: Newsday/Scott Vogel
But the installations are what you come to see, and they don’t disappoint. Indeed, each succeeding room in the 36,000-square-foot ups the marvel quotient: a “4D sound studio” that resembles a color therapy sauna in a Korean spa — but with floors that tremble in time with a New Age soundtrack — is followed by a narrower mirrored room with fantastic projections of lovers, and then a spectacular space in which 500,000 LED lights on strings combine forces to create a holographic galloping horse and more.
Beyond the main rooms, all of which are kid-friendly (or at least not kid-objectionable), Mercer Labs boasts an interactive chess set, a light-up slide descending into a ball pit and a crayon exercise in which animals from a coloring book page come to wild 3D-ish life.
Mercer Labs takes a trek unique, and one utterly worthy of the trek from Long Island, wallet permitting.
Mercer Labs, 21 Dey St. in Manhattan, 212-600-9009, mercerlabs.com. Admission is $52 for adults, $46 younger than 18. Museum hours are Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Newsday writer and restaurant critic Scott Vogel aims for a refreshing, gimlet-eyed take on the Long Island food scene, often while drinking a refreshing gimlet.
