Artist, Nina Katchadourian: I asked Nelson Nieves, assistant director of Building Operations, “What’s the dustiest place in all of MoMA?” He laughed, and led me to this wall of white slats that allow for airflow into the closet-like space behind them. After Nelson dramatically wiped his finger along one of the slats, he showed it to me: it was grey with dust, although they clean them several times a week. Try it yourself and see what you find.
Nelson Nieves: What’s drawing a lot of the dust into this room is the fact that we have our lighting system here. So obviously you have an electrical current running through it and the heat, it’s drawing the dust. You also have an open shaft way above the ceiling. As long as that air is in movement and you have all these thousands and thousands of guests coming, there’s no way we’ll ever get rid of all this dust.
Nina Katchadourian: He unlocked the door to the closet so I could peek inside. If you look at the picture on your device you’ll see what made him react like this.
Nelson Nieves: Wow! Unbelievable. Just as it was expected, piles and piles and piles of dust. Well, must have been a good day yesterday. When I look at this dust I can only imagine that it has to be maybe about enough for a wig, is what I like to say. Definitely somebody could get away with wearing a wig with all this dust.