Arts on the line
The project Arts on the Line included extensive activities to public art in various railway stations and subway stations of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in the Greater Boston in the state of Massachusetts of the United States to install.
history
The first works of art were installed in the late 1970s, and the program, originally set up to 20 works, was later expanded to include additional stations. The project was the first of its kind in the United States and later served as a model for similar projects in other US states. In 1977, the MBTA received a grant of $ 45,000 from the Federal Transit Administration for the development of a plan to furnish the newly built or renovated stations with works of art as part of the expansion of the Boston Red Line .
In 1978, the MBTA finally entered into a partnership with the Cambridge Arts Council (CAC) to implement the set goals. The CAC independently developed and administered the Arts on the Line program.
In 1985 the first phase was completed. A total of 20 works of art had been installed by then at a total cost of $ 695,000 - in 2011 this was the equivalent of between $ 1.3 million and $ 2.5 million.
Installations
The stations Harvard , Porter , Davis and Alewife were the first underground stations of the MBTA, in which works of art of the Arts on the Line issued project. The following tables show all works of art in the stations of the Red Line and Orange Line - in the stations of the Blue Line , with the exception of the State station , which is also a stop on the Orange Line , no works of art are installed.
Orange Line stations
| station | Artwork (s) and artist |
|---|---|
| State |
|
| Forest Hills |
|
| Green Street |
|
| Stony Brook |
|
| Jackson Square |
|
| Roxbury Crossing |
|
| Ruggles |
|
| Massachusetts Avenue |
|
| Back Bay |
|
| Tufts Medical Center |
|
| Chinatown |
|
| Sullivan Square |
|
| Malden Center |
|
| Oak Grove |
|
Red Line stations
| station | Artwork (s) and artist | literature |
|---|---|---|
| Alewife |
|
|
| Davis |
|
|
| porter |
|
|
| Harvard |
|
|
| Andrew |
|
The interactive artwork Kendall Band
In the Kendall / MIT station, Paul Matisse installed the interactive artwork Kendall Band at a cost of $ 90,000 from 1986 to 1988 . It consists of three parts "Pythagoras", "Kepler" and "Galileo" mounted between the tracks and can be set into action by the waiting passengers from both platforms using levers, so that it is basically three musical instruments . The materials used were aluminum , steel and teak . Matisse opted for an installation between the tracks to prevent vandalism : “There was a power rail on one side and the other, so I thought the position was a safe place”. Another interactive work of art by Matisse with the name "The Musical Fence", in German "the musical fence", is now in the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln .
Pythagoras
The work named after the Greek philosopher of the same name consists of a total of 16 tubular bells made of aluminum with a diameter of approx. 4 in (102 mm ) each and a wall thickness of 0.25 in (6.4 mm), which are tuned in B minor . The different lengths of the tubes produce different high and low tones. When visitors operate the levers, teak hammers are activated, which hit the tubes, producing the sound. Asymmetrical slits have been placed in the focal points of the tubes so that the tones are always accompanied by a slight vibrato .
To prevent the hammers from hitting the tubes too hard, they are decoupled from the levers on the platforms. To trigger a hammer blow, the levers must be moved rhythmically in order to generate sufficient mechanical resonance . Which hammer is actually triggered depends, among other things, on which lever was last moved in which form.
Kepler
The instrument, named after the German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler , consists essentially of a metal ring with a diameter of 1.4 m and a weight of 57 kg, which produces the sound f sharp as soon as it is excited by a hammer. This tone forms a harmonic fifth with the notes of Pythagoras . Once stimulated, the tone can be heard for about 5 minutes.
Galileo
The work, named after the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei , consists mainly of a metal plate "the size of a barn door". Moving the lever causes it to vibrate, producing noises that resemble an approaching train or thunder .
Maintenance work
The Kendall tape has long been the only work of art at the Arts on the Line program, which consisted of moving parts, and was very fragile from the start. The “Pythagoras” instrument was already inoperable before the other two were fully installed. It was only over time that Matisse was able to stabilize the plant to such an extent that repairs had to be carried out less frequently but still regularly. This was not possible during ongoing operations, so work could not start until 1:30 a.m. as soon as the last train left the station. Since he could not find anyone to do this for him, Matisse had to do the repairs himself. In 2007, however, the now 74-year-old artist gave up these works after 20 years for reasons of age.
As a result, the entire work quickly fell into disrepair, and the original blueprints were lost due to a hard drive crash. Finally, in 2010, a group of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) decided to take care of the installation and formed the Kendall Band Preservation Society .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lois E. Nesbitt: Art Goes Under. Arts on the Line: Art for Public Transit Spaces At the Hayden Gallery, MIT, 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge Through March 16. In: Harvard Crimson . February 15, 1980, accessed March 25, 2013 .
- ↑ Jeffrey L. Cruikshank, Pam Korza: Going public . a field guide to developments in art in public places. Ed .: Arts Extension Service in cooperation with the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts. Amherst, MA 1988, ISBN 978-0-945464-00-6 ( online in Google book search).
- ^ Red Line Northwest Extension Pamphlet page 5. The Davis Square Tiles Project, accessed March 25, 2013 .
- ^ Measuring Worth. Retrieved September 25, 2018 .
- ↑ On the Orange Line. (PDF; 4.6 MB) Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority , accessed March 29, 2013 .
- ^ Arts on the Line. Alewife Station. (No longer available online.) Cambridge Arts Council, archived from the original on August 6, 2012 ; accessed on September 25, 2018 (English).
- ↑ Cambridge Public Art. (PDF; 790 kB) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on June 9, 2013 ; accessed on September 25, 2018 (English).
- ^ Arts On The Line. Porter Square MBTA Station. (No longer available online.) Cambridge Public Art, archived from the original July 16, 2013 ; accessed on September 25, 2018 (English).
- ^ Red Line Northwest Extension Pamphlet page 5. The Davis Square Tiles Project, accessed March 29, 2013 .
- ↑ Ross Miller: Andrew Square Time Capsule. Retrieved March 29, 2013 .
- ^ Gabriel J. Daly, Sonam S. Velani: T-Riders Ring the Sound of Science. Harvard grad combines art and physics to bring music to Kendall T-Stop. In: Harvard Crimson . December 7, 2006, accessed March 29, 2013 .
- ↑ a b c d Eric Moskowitz: Grace notes from the underground. MIT students restoring ingenious, outlandish Kendall T stop sound sculpture. In: The Boston Globe . May 9, 2010, accessed March 29, 2013 .
- ↑ a b Arts On The Line. Kendall Square. (No longer available online.) Cambridge Arts Council, 2002, archived from the original November 11, 2013 ; accessed on September 25, 2018 (English).
- ^ A b c d Eva Moy: Kendall Sculptures Bring Music, Talk to Strangers . In: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ed.): The Tech . tape 115 , no. 66 . Cambridge, MA January 24, 1996, OCLC 60637439 ( online [accessed March 29, 2013]).
- ^ The Musical Fence. DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, accessed March 29, 2013 .
- ↑ Mac Daniel: This Matisse seeks a patron. With an eye on the future, artist, 74, wants caretaker for Red Line's musical sculpture. In: The Boston Globe . June 18, 2007, accessed March 29, 2013 .