When Brussels began planning a metro system in the early 1960s, the designers envisioned an open, lively and original environment with each station given it’s own identity. The unifying concept for the system was a program of contemporary art that now comprises the city’s biggest art museum.

With the terrorist attacks on Brussels’ airport and metro last month, the art took on a new meaning for Benoit (van Innis), whose work is installed in the Maelbeek station. He wrote, "One of the terrorism bombs exploded in ‘my’ metrostation with the 8 portraits. And suddenly these portraits of anonymous people became or received here in Brussels a new dimension, significance. Those portraits became an homage to all those innocent people who died....their portraits. My portraits are still there, we're still there.”

Benoit is known in the U.S. primarily for his illustrations in the New Yorker and other print media. His art practice includes painting, drawing, and architectural tiles as well. His portraits for the Metro, installed in 2002, are drawn in black on white concrete tiles. The Artistic Commission for Transport Infrastructure writes, “They are anonymous faces like those of the metro passengers. They undeniably refer to passengers waiting for the metro. The work of art in the ticket office area is more suggestive of movement. The work of art was created [by Benoit] in close cooperation with the architects Henk De Smet and Paul Vermeulen.”

Photographs and artwork courtesy Benoit and Riley Illustration.