THE BEIGE MOTEL
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In 2006, Jay Critchley converted what remained of the iconic North Truro, Massachusetts Pilgrim Spring Motel—a 1950’s A-frame motel office with wings, already kitschy and surreal—into “The World’s Largest Sand-Encrusted Motel,” a completely beige-colored encounter for any motorist traveling east on Route 6 en route to Provincetown.
Amidst the sandy beaches and sand dunes of the Outer Cape, Critchley reimagined the beloved motel, soon to be demolished, into a monumental, sand-embalmed sculpture reflecting on time, loss and decay, the environment, and our perception of the universe. It was a deeply felt and complex installation with a simple name: the Beige Motel. The Beige Motel was inspired by the 2002 findings of physicists Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry of Johns Hopkins University, whose exhaustive research of the light in over 200,000 galaxies determined that the average color of the universe is a lackluster beige. That lackluster beige is also the dominant color of dune sand, one of Critchley’s preferred mediums. The physicists’ conclusive research, condensed into a color scheme called the Cosmic Spectrum, validated the artist’s intuitive, longtime use of dune sand, which he applied to the motel structure. The summer-long installation was lit at night with a different color from the spectrum each week. The original Pilgrim Spring Motel was an historic landmark for Outer Cape residents and visitors. A midcentury motor court, the motel was a symbol of middle class America’s postwar prosperity: more and more, people had cars, and they drove them to the Cape for summer vacations. The structure was named after a nearby Nauset Indian fresh water spring used by the Pilgrims in 1620, but the motel and its origins diluted overtime to an imaginative relic of a dying American Dream. Encouraged by the community’s fervent connection to the structure, the artist attempted to save the Beige Motel by selling it on eBay, with no takers. Critchley then proposed the building be shipped by barge and installed permanently on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston. It didn’t fly. 
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PUTIN VISITS THE BEIGE MOTEL
“Beige is the New Black!” Prime Minister Putin states.
21 Gun DILUTE - PULSE MIAMI
21 Gun Dilute is a ritual which originated at the Beige Motel, North Truro, MA, where exactly 21 vacuum cleaners were found while preparing for the opening ceremony of the Beige Motel in 2007. The vacuum cleaners, which were annointed with sacred spring water accompanied with ritual chanting, traveled to Art Basil Miami for an installation at PULSE in 2008.
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BEIGE MOTEL SHIPPED TO THE ROSE KENNEDY GREENWAY
Jay Critchley proposed to float the sand-encrusted “Beige Motel’ from Rte 6 in North Truro across Massachusetts Bay and temporarily install it on the newly-created Rose Kennedy Greenway – above the controversial $22 billion Big Dig. This distinctive, iconic “roadside attraction” – formerly the Pilgrim Spring Motel, named after the nearby fresh water spring used by the Pilgrims in 1620 – is a spare, one story motor court built in 1955, an imaginative relic to the American Dream. The entire complex of 44 bedrooms – previously attached to the main structure – has been demolished. The present “A-frame with wings” office building is scheduled for demolition soon.The Beige Motel/Boston proposal was sent to the Greenway Conservancy for consideration.
The re-incarnation of this structure in the Wharf District would: link Boston to it’s historic waterfront; highlight the architectural relationship between the cityscape and non-urban areas, all connected by the automobile, which created a network of no-frills wayside motels (and the automobiles that now journey unseen below the Greenway itself); link the past with the future – the changing nature of Cape Cod that Rose Kennedy experienced with the unknown future of cars, oil and transportation. This abandoned motel will temporarily re-occupy the space of the abandoned elevated highway of the same era, and meet the new, future cityscape of Boston. ... TO READ MORE...
The re-incarnation of this structure in the Wharf District would: link Boston to it’s historic waterfront; highlight the architectural relationship between the cityscape and non-urban areas, all connected by the automobile, which created a network of no-frills wayside motels (and the automobiles that now journey unseen below the Greenway itself); link the past with the future – the changing nature of Cape Cod that Rose Kennedy experienced with the unknown future of cars, oil and transportation. This abandoned motel will temporarily re-occupy the space of the abandoned elevated highway of the same era, and meet the new, future cityscape of Boston. ... TO READ MORE...