A soaring mosaic artwork that welcomes customers to MTA New York City Transit’s newest subway station and MTA Arts & Design’s first commission of a stop-motion short film are among 2015’s best public art as recognized by the Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit foundation devoted to advancing art and art education. 

Xenobia Bailey’s “Funktional Vibrations,” which is featured at the new 34 St-Hudson Yards station on the Flushing 7 Line, and Red Nose Studio’s animation, “The Blowing Bowler,” were named with 36 other art projects created in 2015 as outstanding by the foundation’s Public Art Network (PAN) Year in Review program. MTA Arts & Design has been recognized in the past four years by the Year in Review. 

“We are honored once again to be recognized by Americans for the Arts, especially for our new digital arts program,” said Sandra Bloodworth, Director of MTA Arts & Design. “’The Blowing Bowler’ was the perfect way for us to work with a media like stop motion that is new to us. It combined our subway system’s rich history with a classic animation technique, and presenting that in a digital format was a new way of bringing art to our riders. We are thrilled to present exciting and new digital art to our customers while we continue to work in traditional art media such as the glass mosaic tiles in ‘Funktional Vibrations’ that visitors from around the world come to see in our stations.” 

“Funktional Vibrations” is composed of glass mosaics suspended above the subway station’s main entrance and in a curved recessed ceiling dome inside the mezzanine. The art crowns the station and features overlapping mandala-like circles and patterns against a cobalt blue background. Bailey was inspired by the universal idea of creation and the work reflects her personal cosmos, a place that vibrates with energy and the sounds of funk, gospel, jazz and R&B. More information can be found here. 

“The Blowing Bowler,” the first stop-motion film commissioned by Arts & Design, was created by illustrator Chris Sickels, who works as Red Nose Studio. He was inspired by the history of New York subway car designs and the continuous movement of commuters. He created the animations from a dioramic model made from wood, clay, fabric, wire, cardboard and found objects. In addition to the main minute-long animation, three shorter loops feature comical cat-and-mouse antics which refer to the round-the-clock operations of the New York City Transit system and a ridership that is always on the move. 

The animations are shown at the Fulton Center station complex in lower Manhattan, where they are played at the top of each hour on 52 large screens throughout the complex.  “The Blowing Bowler” is Arts & Design’s second digital art commission for its new Digital Arts program. The inaugural piece for the program, “New York Minute” by Gabriel Barcia-Colombo, also was honored as outstanding by PAN Year in Review last year. More information on “The Blowing Bowler” is available here. 

“Funktional Vibrations” and “The Blowing Bowler” were honored in the permanent art category of the 2016 PAN Year in Review. More than 260 entries from around North America were submitted, and 38 in total were chosen.

“The Blowing Bowler” (2015), by Red Nose Studio.

About MTA Arts & Design

MTA Arts & Design encourages the use of mass transit in the metropolitan New York area by providing visual and performing arts in the transit environment. In November 2014, Arts & Design launched the Digital Arts program that features works of contemporary new media artists throughout MTA’s digital media network.  The Percent for Art program is one of the largest and most diverse collections of site-specific public art in the world, with more than 300 works by world-famous, mid-career and emerging artists. Arts & Design produces photography installations as well as graphic arts and live musical performances in stations, and the Poetry in Motion program in collaboration with the Poetry Society of America. It serves more than 8 million people who ride MTA subways and commuter trains daily and strives to create meaningful connections between sites, neighborhoods, and people. For more information, please visit mta.info/art.