Tunnel Vision

Grafik, Issue 170

Surrounded by a gentleman in a tweed waistcoat carrying a satchel, a crowd of talkative French teenagers and the suited stationmaster I stand on the stairway in Stanmore Underground station, North London. “It’s good ‘aint it. The sort of thing you’d pay to see in a gallery,” says the man dressed in tweed with a smile. The work in question is by Serena Korda, one of the talented, contemporary artists to be commissioned by Art on the Underground, a scheme that introduces new artworks into London’s Underground stations in an attempt to interrupt the monotony of travel.

The Art on the Underground campaign was established seven years ago. They have since commissioned a multitude of artists and installations, such as Brian Griffith’s Life is a Laugh, where from July 2007 to May of last year a caravan, a giant panda’s head and a pile of mattresses were just some of the items to fill the disused platform at the Gloucester Road Underground station. The campaign has also funded new cover designs for the London Underground pocket tube map, inviting artists from the master of the quick draw, Mr David Shrigley, to Gary Hume, Cornelia Parker, Jeremy Deller and most recently Pae White to rework the colours and format of Harry Beck’s iconic tube map into cover art. While these recent commissions have pushed the boundaries of public art the introduction of art into the underground system is not a new idea.

Frank Pick, former Managing Director of the London Underground, commissioned the first graphic poster for the underground a century ago and since then London Transport have continued to regularly commission artists and designers, from publicity posters by Hans Schleger and Man Ray (who cleverly juxtaposed the ‘roundel’ symbol against a night sky) to upholstery design by Enid Marx and Paul Nash. They even commissioned the poet John Betjeman to write their tourist leaflets. In the eighties the many abandoned advertising spaces, most of which were covered over in black paper, made the underground a dark and somewhat depressing place to be in. As the underground’s Marketing and Development Director Dr Henry Fitzhugh decided to utilise the space, creating a new initiative whereby six posters were to be commissioned each year. Fitzhugh’s campaign was a success; supporting the contemporary artists of the day, while filling the abandoned advertising spaces with artworks to inspire travellers on their tiresome commute.

Last year, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ‘roundel’, the legendary red, white and blue symbol, designed for the London underground by Edward Johnston, 100 artists were commissioned to re-interpret the sign, turning a corporate brand on its head while drawing on the spirit and artistic heritage of the underground. Sculptor James Ireland was one of the artists commissioned, whose ‘pen and tape’ work was one of the 100 exhibits photographed for the show. Two prints were made of each artwork, one for the underground’s archive of commissioned work, and another, which was offered for sale to the public through an online auction. Ireland was also one of five artists to produce a poster for the 2007 Art on the Underground rebrand, where an astonishing 125,000 posters were given away. “To see your work distributed on such a scale is amazing, it really is a great opportunity,” explains Ireland.

The underground has an audience in the billions, yet this also creates enormous challenges for the curators, artists and designers involved. There are rules about what can and cannot be displayed in a public space and, unlike a museum, the underground does not have a captive audience – they are an audience of travellers moving to-and-fro in the city so the artwork has to capture travellers attention within a matter of moments. One of the greatest hurdles for artists to overcome is trying to ensure that their work does not disappear amongst the underground’s shadows, discarded newspapers and multiple signage – and that is where the curators expertise comes into its own. “The artists we commission have to be positively critical of the space. The artwork has to change the public’s perceptions of the tube and interrupt the normality of their journey to make it a spectacular one. The artists have to acknowledge these surroundings while subtly responding to it,“ states Sally Shaw, curator for Art on the Underground. It is a complex process that requires a massive psychological shift from travellers, but the rewards are huge. The space can reach a more diverse audience than that of a museum or art gallery – each design of the pocket tube map alone reaches an incredible 50 million people. The important factor is that the work captures the attention of travellers, making them double take and teasing them into looking out for the artwork.

“The nature of installing art in a public space such as a train station is was very demanding,” admits recent RCA graduate Serena Korda whose installation can currently be seen at Stanmore Underground station, a station that until recently was full of abandoned 1940s square billboards. Korda attended school in Stanmore 15 years ago and so already had a connection to the site, which assisted her in working with the community to research the history of the area and recording the long-treasured tales and memories of the locals. The installation includes a series of giant crossword puzzles with Stanmore themed clues from an infamous Duke who made and then lost his fortune in ten years to the secret locations of machinery used by wartime code breakers. The answers to these puzzles also appear around the station in the form of Korda’s cheerful prints, made from linocuts, screen prints and a letterpress. “The art on the underground team didn’t know about my link to the area so it was very serendipitous. I feel like the work belongs here now as it has such a connection with the community. Working with art on the underground was such a collaborative process. There are so many skills needed, the curators really helped me to understand the space and the graphic designer was invaluable in using advertising techniques to make sure we capture everyone’s attention,” says Korda.

The success of many of the Art in the Underground commissions is their ability to seep into the surrounding space, while somehow still catching you off-guard. This is first and foremost due to the great work of the commissioned artists but also in part thanks to the guidance of the curators and to the skills of the graphic designers that work for the programme, including the talented Fraser Muggeridge, who for the past eighteen months has sensitively assisted a number of the commissioned artists to help facilitate their ideas. Muggeridge has supported Anna Barriball on her evocative project titled ‘About 60 Miles of Beautiful Views’ where found phrases, discovered by the artist, such as “I think I’m being watched” and “Oh, boy, what a wonderful city!” were subtly introduced among commercial advertisements as black and white posters on the network. He also worked alongside Brian Griffiths to produce the wonderfully worn-looking advertisements for his commission Life is a Laugh and most recently working with Jessica Voorsanger on her Mystery Train poster series, currently on show at Charing Cross Underground station. Muggeridge also assisted with the Art on the Underground rebranding, successful adding his subtle touch to signage that literally stops you in your tracks. “Fraser is very skilled in being a sensitive and accurate facilitator of artists ideas. It is a fine balance to assist with the design while respecting the content that comes from the artists. The way we work with graphic design is important and Fraser and our other designers work with the artists to present their work in a complicated environment,” says Shaw.

With the countdown to London’s 2012 Olympics now on, the Art on the Underground team are busier than ever considering how to reach their massive audience with permanent, strategically placed installations. These commissions will no doubt continue to enrich our underground travels and to challenge the traditional public art view of a stone statue of a gentleman with a bowler hat and cane to the type of inventive art that you might encounter in the Tate Modern.