'Pixel Forest,' Ending This Sunday At The New Museum, Draws Huge Crowds

LOWER EAST SIDE, NY — The line outside the New Museum, located on Bowery between Stanton and Rivington streets, stretched over two blocks long on Thursday. Was there a special guest speaking? A celebrity artist signing autographs? Nope, that was just the general admission line for an exhibit that a representative for the museum says has been "our most popular to show to date." The show, "Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest," marks the first New York survey of the work of Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist.

The 30-year, three-floor retrospective features a kaleidoscope of video, lights and music, and it has been getting rave reviews. Critics at the New Yorker said the exhibition "is good and good for you: see it and undergo therapeutic rapture." The New York Times gushingly described various artworks in the show as "perfect," "among the best videos ever made" and "among the most bedazzling pieces of light art you may ever see."

The lines have been like they were on Thursday pretty much since the show opened at the end of October, Allison Underwood, the museum's press and social media manager, tells Patch. And though the crowds aren't likely to abate in the next three days, you still have a chance to see the exhibit. But not for long — "Pixel Forest" is closing this Sunday.

Advanced tickets are sold out, but you can buy tickets at the door. The museum is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday-Sunday. General admission is $18; seniors get in for $15; students can pay $12; and teens and kids 18 and under get in free.

And if you absolutely can't catch the show by Sunday, you can catch a video work of Rist’s — "Open My Glade (Flatten)" — which will be on view in Times Square from 11:57 p.m. to midnight every night throughout January as part of Midnight Moment, a monthly presentation by the Times Square Advertising Coalition and Times Square Arts.

Check out the photos below for a taste of what the lines have been like and a peak inside the exhilarating exhibit.

Lead photo and all exhibit photos courtesy of the New Museum; line photos by Marc Torrence/Patch.