Photo: MTA Arts for Transit
Faith Ringgold’s mosaic “Flying Home: Harlem Heroes and Heroines (Downtown and Uptown),” 1996, is one of the pieces of subway art featured in a PBS documentary.
I’m always amazed by the beauty of the mosaics in the New York subway, even the ones that merely tell you what street you’re at. It makes me happy to see that the city values them, too, and periodically cleans up the oldest ones. They go back as early as 1901.
My sister alerted me to an excellent PBS documentary about recent additions to the art in the subway system. You can read about it at the website Mosaic Art Now.
“For a delightful immersion into the history and current activities of the enormous underground museum that is the New York subway system’s Arts For Transit program, treat yourself to WNET Channel Thirteen’s free one hour video called ‘Treasures of New York: Art Underground.’ …
“Mosaic artist Steven Miotto gets major face time. His decades-long collaboration with artists of all stripes is a fascinating story in itself. When selected by a commissioned artist as a collaborating partner, he gets into their minds and hearts, leading them through the complex process of translating their vision and their graphic designs into mosaic ‘paintings for eternity.’ …
“Faith Ringgold, speaks eloquently and nostalgically about the series of paintings – now mosaics – that portray the heroes of her Harlem childhood. Writers and musicians fly across the cityscape in flattened but vivid characterizations. I had the opportunity to interview her when she was in Miami last year, and she spoke about the challenges of trying to ‘make it’ as an African-American artist dealing with political themes at a time when the galleries favored the abstract. Click here (http://bitly.com/yxGJ3R) to listen to that interview with her.”
See some of the beautiful new mosaics and watch the video here.
If you are up for more on transit-system art, be sure to check out an excellent article by Sarah Hotchkiss at KQED about what’s going on with San Francisco’s Transbay system, here.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/sweden/articles/a-tour-of-stockholms-underground-subway-art/. Here you can get a taste of the art in Stockholm`s subway. It is a much younger subwaysystem than the one in New York. Thanks for sharing so much information about what you are reading and seeing in US.
That’s a great link. And remember when I wrote a shorter piece about Stockholm’s subway: https://suzannesmomsblog.com/2014/01/08/the-stockholm-subway/
The Ringgold mosaic is wonderful. She is known for narrative quilts, too.
I love that she stuck to her vision during the years that abstract art was considered the ne plus ultra.