Reflections>Expressions---2009
Project Site:
CTA/ Chicago Avenue Brown Line Station/ Chicago, IL
Funded by:
Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, CTA Arts-in-Transit
This was a commission to develop and implement a public art program at the Chicago Station—part of the renovation of the CTA Brown Line. Responsive, iconographic structures--red and orange aluminum panels inscribed with poly-lingual expressions and abbreviations—hang above both inbound and outbound faces of the train platform canopies. Comprised of randomly pivoting, mirror-polished modules, these compositions are canted slightly downward to reflect the cityscape as well as the station, panels and transit riders across the tracks. The structures pivot and vibrate from the forces of air currents and passing trains, creating distorted color-saturated reflections of the city that are agitated and shattered by the wind and approaching trains.
A minimalist vocabulary of creative expressions in the realms of art, design, music, economics, mathematics and science---geometric forms, symbols, icons, numerals and language components---visually fragment and interact with the pivoting rectangular modules that comprise the artwork. The fragments of symbols, icons and language continually shift, de-form and re-form, the activated forms suggesting a duality---the vulnerability as well as the perseverance of the creative process in the face of disruptive social dynamics and uncertain public reception---distortion, interpretation, inspiration, incitement, transformation or general societal indifference.
Constructed of 72 mirror-polished aluminum panels with color anodized finish and sandblasted icon graphics.
