when the workers were busy building a brand new station Grand Central Madison artist, november Kiki Smith Standing in front of her new mosaic, River Light, is an abstract blue and white depiction of the East River’s glimmering sunshine.
“I had never made a mosaic before,” she says, pausing to touch the various surfaces of the small, colorful pieces of glass that make up the composition. She added, “I’ve never made anything this big in my life.”
The 80-foot-long construction is on the Madison Concourse Level of Grand Central Madison, a 700,000-square-foot, $11.1 billion Long Island Railroad terminal, and is scheduled to open in December. The terminal is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s largest project to date.
With safety concerns mounting and subway riders continuing to recover, some may question why the MTA is spending money on art, but the art program costs $1.4 million. and only 0.01% of the terminal’s total budget.
Rachel Fause, Senior Policy Advisor, Watchdog Group Reinventing Albanyshe didn’t object to the art program per se, but said it was “part of the bigger problem of having unique and expensive stations” and contrasted with the more cost-conscious route of standardization. “If aesthetics are more important than functionality and it affects the whole system, it will add up over time,” says Fauss.
Organizer MTAArt & Designcommissioned art at Grand Central Madison includes photography by Paul Pfeiffer, the first installment of a rotating lightbox exhibition programmed in partnership with the International Center of Photography. In addition, digital works are exhibited on five large LED screens. Gabriel Barcia Colombo, Jordan Bruner When Red Nose Studiowhich focuses on 3D illustration and animation.
Passers through the terminal will also encounter four other glass mosaics by Smith and a 120-foot-long glass mosaic by the artist. Yayoi Kusama.
Thematically, Smith’s works all refer to nature, and specifically to the flora and fauna of Long Island. A wild turkey depicted in her mosaic “The Spring” is poised to become a commuter favorite. Also, all her digital work and her photographic work depict some aspect. of city life in all its bustling and eccentric glory.
Smith never resorted to intense color to influence his work. This project pushed her in a new direction as seen in the yellow, blue and red bits that make up the turkey. “This was a way of engaging with color,” she said.
Kusama, who now lives in Tokyo, was a New Yorker from 1958 to 1975. Her 120-foot-long mosaic — “Message of Love, Straight from My Heart, Out of Space” (2022), also on Madison’s concourse — is typical. Her signature modern work style is reflected in the vibrant pop productions that have brought her a strong reputation at the age of 93 in her later years.
Transportation in New York City
Her surreal and humorous “my eternal soulA series of paintings and immersive rooms, a vibrant multi-coloured composition, depicts a fantasy space party of sorts, with sun-like smiles shaped like amoeba, the now-familiar pumpkin One, floating alongside a combination of abstract shapes.
In an email, Kusama said that the station venue inspired her to draw various characters coming and going.
“It could be you or it could be me,” she said.
Kusama added that she remembers taking the subway all over New York, especially to libraries, museums and theaters.
Public transport was also the setting for at least one of her landmark ‘happenings’ called interventions in public art.
“I once had a nudity happening at a subway station,” Kusama said, referring to the final iteration of her “Anatomical Explosion” series in November 1968. Dancers, but it was spectacular.
A committee of art professionals and transportation officials selected Smith and Kusama after soliciting portfolios in 2020. “It was a very competitive process,” said Sandra Bloodworth, director of MTA Arts & Design. Seven women remained in the final selection, and the women who were selected made proposals that were close to the completed form. According to Bloodworth, both artists have created works that are far more provocative and button-push than their work at Grand Central Madison.
“Artists are smart,” she said. “When they’re out in public, they’re aware of what works in that environment.”
Pfeiffer’s series of 10 photographs of Times Square buskers, called “Still Life,” are imbued with a unique New York sensibility. Da Goldman (real name: Travis Hartfield)is known for holding a stationary pose and being covered in gold paint.
“We wanted to create something that reflected the environment in which these images were displayed,” Pfeiffer said.
He described the studio-shot results as a cross between fashion shoots and still life paintings.
Pfeiffer said of Hartfield, “I use my commission to amplify his performance. It was a collaboration with him.”
40 New Yorkers move in slow motion in Barcia Colombo’s five-channel video production Platform. He put out casting calls on social media for some of the participants and found others on the street.
“We are so isolated in the pandemic,” said Barcia Colombo. “This is about being in the crowd again.”
Barcia-Colombo added that the digital component complements the medium of mosaics, New York’s traditional public transit art.
“Digital art is the future of public art,” he said. “All these stations have screens. It’s the entrance for people.”
With her five productions, Smith has the biggest footprint on the project. She said “River Light” was inspired by her commute trips.
“People are going back and forth down the East River,” she said. “You’re traveling through water.” The pattern appears to form a starburst in some places, but she said it’s reflected nicely. The famous “empty ceiling” at Grand Central Station.
One floor below Madison Concourse on the Long Island Railroad’s mezzanine are four of her other works, all occupying vaulted alcoves. “The Presence”, a landscape with a deer. “Spring” with her four turkeys in lush vegetation. And “The Sound” is a seascape with big seagulls.
“We wanted a place where people could say, ‘See you by the deer,'” Smith said. “Something unique.”
Smith grew up in New Jersey and became a New Yorker in 1976. Now she spends a lot of time at her Valley home in Hudson. Early in her career, she became known for her figurative work, particularly her work depicting the female body, and over time she came to use nature as a starting point for her art. .
She bases all her mosaics on her previous work. “River Light” was first a photograph, then cyanotype, However, it looks very different in the Mosaic incarnation.
“We use the same images over and over again,” says Smith. “And then change the material and scale.”
Then came a process that took the better part of two years, a complex back-and-forth to turn her idea into a tiny piece of glass.
First, Mr. Smith sent the original artwork to a specialized studio that he had collaborated with in tapestry production in the past. magnolia edition, in Oakland, California. That stage helped her combine disjointed images into her one big composition.
Smith worked with a German company that was a mosaic specialist founded in the 19th century. Franz Meyer in Munich(Kusama and her studio Miot Mosaic Art Studio Carmel, New York)
Having traveled to Munich four times for the Grand Central Madison project and previously working with Mayer on stained glass productions, Smith had to get used to giving up some control. Mayer’s craftsman is the one who decomposes her compositions into smaller components.
“The first time I did it, it hit me with a lot of anxiety,” Smith said. “Basically I make my own work.”
“That’s what Mosaic is all about. It’s about trust,” she said.
Just as Kusama’s work celebrates the diverse crowds that flock to train stations, Smith pays homage to the ways art and architecture can improve civic life.
It was inspired by her father, the noted sculptor Tony Smith (1912-1980), especially when he took the family on a pilgrimage of sorts in 1963.
“My father took me, my sisters and my mother to Pennsylvania Station before it was demolished. McKim Mead & WhiteSmith was nine years old at the time.
She recalled that her father’s reaction “made a huge impression on me” as she prepared to reveal her contribution to a major new chapter in the history of the city’s infrastructure.
“He was crying the whole time,” said Smith.