Emily:
All right. You want to walk over with me, you can. This is a fun, creepy corner that people are very afraid of. So we're standing in the boiler, the old boiler room of MoMA PS1 right now in front of the large boiler that was set down here in 1902. That was then gold leafed by Saul Melman back in 2010 as part of our greater New York show.
Bobby:
And you have this massive furnace...
Emily:
It's the original boiler of the room. And then it was like abandoned and not used anymore.
Bobby:
Oh, so this is a Relic. It's very old. It's still very beautiful.
Emily:
It's fun. Because it's one of the only pieces you could also like totally interact with. So like you're allowed to open all the doors. I always touch the parts that are just old and grimy and not covered in gold leaf, just because gross.
Bobby:
And if you keep on looking at it, you obviously see that it's about halfway covered in gold leafing. And this is the work of Saul Melman. You can see gold a lot in Catholic artwork around deities and it's always associated with life. So with this piece, he wanted to bring the boiler back to life. So he used gold leafing to cover the surface and he also worked as a surgeon in the emergency room. So they think that "Central Governor" got his name because of that relation. "Central Governor" means the heart.
Emily:
He named the peace "Central Governor" after this kind of idea that the boiler was the heart of the building.
Bobby:
So, well by reinvigorating the heart you can kind of bring back to life, this museum. And that's what I think he was trying to do in some way.
Emily:
The gross fun details of this piece is that he didn't use any sort of like traditional glue or water based kind of like adhesive.
Bobby:
All the gold leaving was applied with his bodily fluids. That includes sweat, blood and urine.
Emily:
He used blood, sweat and tears, like literally.
Bobby:
I would say that this is definitely one of the visitor favorites.
Emily:
If you walk over to the piece and you look at the center where you see some lights, you'll notice these test tubes filled with a white liquid.
Bobby:
There's two vials. I don't don't know what they were used for, but Saul Melman has repurposed them and inserted his semen in it.
Emily:
People have gasped. People just will like give you blank stares. People just will kind of explode in laughter.
Bobby:
Yes that sounds weird, but there's this association with life.
Emily:
I think it kind of kicks them off into a good point of understanding how many strange things are here.
Bobby:
So, many people might think it's funny, but to me it kind of makes sense. It's outlandish, but once I look at the artwork as a whole, I feel like I understand it and appreciate it.
