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The DART Board: 12.20.2016

By Peggy Roalf   Tuesday December 20, 2016

“A Man who Stands for Nothing Falls for Anything.” —Malcolm X

“Love’s the only engine of survival,” —Leonard Cohen

“When they go low, we go high.”—Michelle O

“I will peacefully resist.”—Anonymous

These are just a few of the sentiments posted in the corridors of New York’s subways in the days following the unexpected victory of president-elect Donald Trump. When it became evident that fewer than 20 percent of voters supported Trump, citizens took to the underground to make their feelings known, by writing them onto colorful Post-its.

The brainchild of artist Matthew “Leveee” Chavez, Subway Therapy began November 9, in the 14th Street tunnel between the 2/3 and F/M stops. About 2,000 people responded to his call to “express yourself,” and the project soon expanded to Union Square—historically the city's soapbox, if more often in the park above.

Working with the artist, and with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the New-York Historical Society will archive a large selection of the mini-messages as part of their History Responds program. A large assortment of the Post-its goes on view today in the lobby of the city’s oldest museum. If you didn’t have a chance to participate in the subway, you have until inaugural day, January 20th, to add your thoughts to the stickie wall.

The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West at 77th Street, NY, NY Info More about Subway Therapy. Above: photo by Sam Lane

For long-term subway therapy, people riding the new Second Avenue Subway, on the Upper East Side between East 63rd and 96th Streets, will be sure to sing out when the line goes into service on January 1st.

Today at press conference at the Museum of Modern Art, Governor Cuomo unveiled the large-scale projects created by New York artists Chuck Close, Sarah Sze, Jean Shin and Vik Muniz, working closely with the M.T.A. Arts & Design office. At a cost of $4.5 million, out of an overall budget of $4.45 billion, the program allowed artists selected for the new subway station artwork a rare opportunity of working on a blank canvas.

The governor has been much in evidence during the closing days of the subway’s construction, even criticizing contractors for not moving fast enough towards the deadline of December 31st. A strong proponent of the Arts & Design program, he said at the press conference, “At some point government adopted an attitude that its job was to build things that were functional but unattractive and unappealing.” 

“But that’s not how it has always been, and it’s not how it should be," he continued.  "With every public works project, I believe there is an opportunity to elevate the everyday, to build a public space where community can gather and where culture and shared civic values are celebrated," he said, referring to an era of infrastructure development under Nelson A. Rockefeller and Robert Moses. “This is just the beginning of a new period of rebirth,” he said.

Following is a selection of images of the new art installations, but you’ll have to wait another couple of weeks to see for yourself.

 

One panel from Vik Muniz’s “Perfect Strangers,” a series of three dozen life-size portraits that seem to be waiting for a train at the 72nd Street station.

 

 

A view from the 96th Street station, where Sarah Sze evoked the construction process through “Blueprint for a Landscape,” an immersive drawing that unfolds down the escalators and through the concourse level at the 96th Street station.

 

 

A Chuck Close mosaic portrait of Lou Reed at the 86th Street Station is accompanied by other art-world celebrities including the composer Philip Glass, Kara Walker, and Alex Katz, among others.

 

 

For the 63rd Street station, Jean Shin used archival photographs of the Second Avenue and Third Avenue elevated train to create compositions in ceramic tile, glass mosaic and laminated glass that evoke an earlier time. 

 

 


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