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Contemporary Art Underground: MTA Arts & Design New York
A celebration of more than 100 major public art commissions throughout the New York transit system
Among the featured artists are Yayoi Kusama, Kiki Smith, Nick Cave, Ann Hamilton, Xenobia Bailey, Jim Hodges, Alex Katz, Sarah Sze, Vik Muniz, and Julien Gardair.
Contemporary Art Underground presents more than 100 permanent projects completed between 2015 and 2023 by MTA Arts & Design.
Written by Sandra Bloodworth
and Cheryl Hageman,
with a foreword by Hilarie M. Sheets
Published by Monacelli
JULIEN GARDAIR
We are each others, 2018
18th Avenue F
Kings Highway F
We are each others is composed of eight sculptural benches and fourteen windscreens installed at neighboring stations in Brooklyn. Julien Gardair’s design for the piece is based on a single continuous line drawing that could be cut and folded to the desired form. The flat windscreens were also designed to use the single-line technique, splitting the panel in two to create positive and negative images. This mirroring technique is most easily seen in the panels installed directly across the platform from “each other.”
The joyful imagery for the seating was inspired by neighborhood characters. The life-sized bench figures represent both historical and contemporary South Brooklyn, including Andrew Culver, founder of the Coney Island Railroad; Lady Deborah Moody, the first known female landowner in New Netherland and founder of nearby Gravesend, Brooklyn; a baseball player for the Brooklyn Dodgers; a person enjoying ice cream; a headphone-wearing commuter; mothers carrying young children; and a person carrying a bag of cans to a redemption center near the 18th Avenue Station.
Julien Gardair, We are each others.
Photos: Peter Peirc.
This ground-breaking program of site-specific projects by a broad spectrum of well-known and emerging contemporary artists has helped to create a sense of character and place at subway and commuter rail stations throughout the MTA system.
Of special interest is the discussion of fabricating and transposing the artist’s rendering or model into mosaic, glass, or metal, the materials that can survive in the transit environment.
This is the definitive survey of the latest works of the internationally acclaimed MTA Arts & Design collection.
On view 24 hours a day, the collection is seen by more than four million subway riders and commuters daily and has been hailed as ‘New York’s Underground Art Museum.’
The collection enlivens stations in all boroughs, with a myriad of works by major contemporary artists executed in mosaic, glass, metal, and ceramic.
About the author
Sandra Bloodworth
is director of MTA Arts & Design and the principal author of Along the Way and New York’s Underground Art Museum. Under her leadership, MTA Arts & Design has gained renown in the field of public transportation by creating a collection of nearly 400 public artworks. Bloodworth is the recipient of numerous awards including the Sloan Public Service Award and the Gari Melchers Award from the Artist’s Fellowship.
Cheryl Hageman
is deputy director of MTA Arts & Design, responsible for commissioning new projects and maintaining the permanent art collection throughout the MTA system. She has applied an in-depth knowledge of materials and fabrication to produce and care for award-winning artworks during her two decades as an arts administrator.
Hilarie M. Sheets
writes frequently on public art for the New York Times and the Art Newspaper.
Specifications:
- Format: Hardback
- Size: 286 × 248 mm (11 1/4 × 9 3/4 in)
- Pages: 264 pp
- Illustrations: 300 illustrations
- ISBN: 9781580936422