It is not only necessary that art be available for all to experience, but that art is experienced that is why the Exterior lighting installation is designed primarily as a public piece. Public art is undervalued and often overlooked. Serving as a house of art, P.S. 1 must actively assert itself as not only serving its patrons, but as belonging to its community. The illumination of the building's towers serves as an understated announcement, visible at night from as far away as the Long Island Expressway and the 59th Street Bridge, affecting a relationship between P.S.1 and the surrounding neighborhoods.
But Exterior also works on another level: the nightly lighting changes the public's perception of the building during the day. Those people who pass through the neighborhood who know nothing of P.S.1 see the illumination as a piece of art in and of itself. Those who happen to pass or see it at a distance will be attracted to enter what they may previously have passed by. The lighting is an open invitation to all an open door to the public.
