You Are / Are Not Here
By focusing on the “you are here” signs, the artists slyly suggest that through our imagination we can similarly be “there” as well.
All Exhibitions
In addition to integrating artwork at all Metro stations, we also offer transit riders the opportunity to engage with a wide variety of artworks through multiple exhibition series. The unique, site-specific formats range from neighborhood posters and photography to community art banners and most recently on TAP cards and digital screens at station platforms.
Voyage of Reflection
These stunning images of walls, rails and signage encourage commuters to become more visually engaged with their surroundings. The artist has used a grainy film to enhance the idea of how a passenger’s glance may commit a fleeting detail to memory.
Vidrio
Photographs document performers in an implied visual opera. Performers attempt to engage the viewer by presenting a range of characters cast within the urban environment of downtown Los Angeles.
Urban Forest
The images emphasize a prominent feature of Los Angeles neighborhoods that visually characterizes the cityscape, yet often goes unnoticed. Celebrating human ingenuity and labor, the series also investigates our relationship to the flora around us.
Untitled (Questions)
Untitled (Questions) features large-scale queries, alternating between English and Spanish, created by artist Barbara Kruger.
Untitled (Tilford’s)
Jim Isermann’s Untitled (Tilford’s) (2006) reimagined the facade of Metro’s former Wilshire Customer Center. The artwork transformed the existing 1950s building into a dynamic, eye-catching landmark.
Untitled
Intertwining issues of race, class and gender, this untitled series of self-portraits are an investigation of the aesthetic and cultural divide between white and black, a chasm as palpable as it is “invisible.”
Untitled
Landscape photographs compare the endurance of geological features with the less permanent built environment.
Travelers
These photographs depict snow globes sculpted by the artists themselves. The winter wonderland vignettes traditionally associated with snow globes have been supplanted with weary commuters trundling with their baggage through blankets of bitter cold.
The Makers: Portraits of Metro Artists by Todd Gray
This series of photographic portraits present the artists behind the artworks in the Metro system. The illuminated photographs on display in the Passageway Art Gallery depict the artists in their homes and studios, providing a glimpse into their distinct personalities and cultural influences.
The Heart of Los Angeles
Photo based artworks by five artists address Union Station as The Heart of Los Angeles on the occasion of its seventy-fifth anniversary.
The Future is Owned By You and Me
The familiar yet unidentifiable landscape of the “passing scene” allows the viewer to also inhabit the space of the traveler in the photographs, to be in these non-places without fixing on destination.
The Complete Works of Roland Barthes
People read on trains to pass the time or, possibly, to avoid looking at others. Encountering images of people reading may trigger a reminder that reading might be a good idea.
Sparrow Lane
‘Sparrow Lane’ presents a mysterious narrative of young women on the verge of adulthood.
Silver Linings
Creative expressions of connection and care are at the heart of Silver Linings, a new series by six local artists that debuted on Metro buses from December 2020-July 2021. Artists include Stephanie Mercado, Laura Vazquez Rodriguez, Phung Huynh, Chris Johanson, Alfonso Aceves and Kassia Rico.
Seven Spots and a Path
As Landscape Artist, Jud Fine collaborated with the landscape architect and the Landscape Project Team to develop design concepts and specifications for landscaping artwork and plantings integrated throughout the G Line (Orange) route.
Saint Louis is our Salvation
The artist documents intimate moments between her family and the family’s next generation’s firstborn, Louise, as a way of mourning the loss of her mother Louisa and seeking hope in the future of Louise.
Regarding Paul R. Williams
Pioneering Los Angeles architect, Paul R. Williams (1894-1980), was the first Black architect to become a member of the American Institute of Architects and built a wildly successful career as an architect, decades before the Civil Rights Movement.
Power
A series of large-scale, unique direct-positive photographs made on discarded 55- gallon oil drum lids is grounded in one of the most contentious issues of our time: the social, political and environmental landscape of the American oil industry.
Poetry In Motion/LA™
Launched in October 1998 in partnership with the Poetry Society of America, Poetry in Motion/LA™ places poems directly in the path of more than one million Metro bus riders daily.
Photographs on the D.C. Subway
In train cars with ample space, passengers position themselves at carefully calibrated distances from their neighbors. However, once that space has been established they begin to relax and act as they might do in the privacy of home.
Photo Binge
‘Photo Binge’ satirizes an urban, commodity-driven culture that focuses on food, health, nutrition, beauty and the surface of things. The collage of images depicts various binge activities such as eating, exercising and shopping.
Passing Through
Each grouping of images within Union Station represent not only details from the physical environment, but also time and passage, light and vision, and the romantic notion of traveling and greetings over the years.
Passing Lily
The artist’s use of a silk flower to mimic the imperfect appearance of a wilting lily—its blossoming, sagging, drying and falling petals—is a metaphor that investigates socially constructed notions of gender.
Paradise Found
Union Station’s greenery is highlighted to create a temporarily refreshing moment and tranquil state of mind, recognizing that busy travelers may overlook the beauty of the station’s outdoor spaces and natural assets.