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 Photo Lightbox Series
Initiated in 2001, the Metro Art Photo Lightbox Series provides photography exhibits that engage a broad range of Metro riders on their daily commute. Lightbox displays are comprised of photographic transparencies, sequentially arranged on internally illuminated boxes, and appear at the following Metro stations – 7th St/Metro Center Station, Hollywood/Highland Station, Universal City/Studio City Station, Vermont/Beverly Station, and Wilshire/Normandie Station.
Photo Lightbox Series
This series of photo-based artwork that rotates throughout lightboxes installed at five Metro transit stations provides a traveling platform for temporary exhibitions of photographic art that engage a broad range of Metro riders and geographies en route to their destinations.
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
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 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.
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.
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.
Oblivion
This portrait of our metropolis offers a sense of both place and displacement, and underscores the need for a thriving public transportation system. The series also gives us a sense of where we are personally and on the level of urban planning.
Oak and Thistle: Views of the Santa Monica and San Gabriel Mountains
The series depicts the rolling hills and native flora of western Los Angeles at Cheeseboro and Palo Comado Canyon and captures the foothill woodlands that run along the San Gabriel Mountains to the east through images taken at Descanso Gardens.
Natura Urbanus
Project Description John Humble’s compelling series of 12 color photographs, titled Natura Urbanus (2015), expands upon a long-term photographic project exploring the paradoxes and ironies of the Los Angeles landscape. Each set of three artworks considers nature in relation to one of four themes: the Los Angeles River, power lines, artificial nature and freeways. Among the photographs are pictorial representations of the Los Angeles River, which has been exploited, encased in concrete, and has recently begun to be reclaimed to its natural state. Additionally, the artist points his lens toward the many miles of potted plants that exist in Los Angeles nurseries on leased land beneath the city’s vital power lines, where it is illegal to build permanent buildings. Manmade elements that imitate nature to make technology inconspicuous—such as manufactured trees used to camouflage cell phone towers—and the many natural elements that coexist with and in spite of the city’s freeways are also featured in this group of artworks. These artworks are part of a Metro Art Photo Lightbox Series exhibition were on view through spring 2016 in …
Narrative Photograms
The seven energetic images selected for this series were produced by a photogram process and tell stories that reflect the idea of journeys, passages, memories, and thresholds that define our lives.
L.A. Flow
Project Description The layered cyan, magenta and yellow transparencies in Matthew Brandt’s photographic series L.A. Flow (2016) were processed through a waterfall system that pumps Los Angeles tap water over the surface of each monochrome print. It took weeks for the water to erode the pathways that form the images. Alluding to the necessity of interdependence, the artworks are a reminder that the city’s municipal water system, like Metro, connects us all through an infinitely shifting network of relations that are essential to everyday life. These artworks are part of the Metro Art Photo Lightbox Series and will be displayed in select stations between 2017 and 2020. Artist Statement “Recent events throughout the United States have shown us the fragility of municipal water systems and the power of civic stewardship. Though the populace of Los Angeles is economically and culturally diverse, we all drink from the same tap. Our daily decisions impact those around us.” About the Artist MATTHEW BRANDT (b. 1982, Los Angeles) earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of …
LA Day, LA Night
Project Description The daytime images were taken directly into the sun, and depict highways as meandering rivers. The nighttime shots move from representation to abstraction becoming a reversed celestial sky. Artist Statement “I couldn’t resist the concept of placing work made about LA itself a couple of years ago in the entrances to its underground circulatory system. This series is comprised of three key daytime aerial images of Los Angeles and four night aerial shots alternating through the seven photo lightbox sequence.” About the Artist MICHAEL LIGHT is a San Francisco-based photographer and bookmaker focused on contemporary American culture’s relationship to the environment. He has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally, and his work has been collected by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Getty Research Library, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The New York Public Library, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. He is the recipient of the Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Photography. Display year: 2010 – 2013 Locations: Vermont/Beverly StationNo longer on display
Intolerable Beauty
Project Description Beautiful photo images depict piles of the not so beautiful remains of mass consumption, serving as visual reminders of the roles we all play in America’s unsustainable culture. Artist Statement “I am appalled by these scenes, and yet also drawn into them with awe and fascination. The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity.” About the Artist CHRIS JORDAN has exhibited his work internationally and is the recipient of the Greenleaf Award and a Lannan Foundation Production Grant. Based in San Francisco, Jordan’s focus on sustainability and waste not only have afforded him exhibition opportunities but also speaking engagements at Green symposiums and conferences. Display year: 2010 – 2013 Locations: 7th St/Metro Center Station No longer on display
Intervals and Intensities
Project Description LaBelle’s photographs depict some of LA’s most iconic apartment hotels located in Hollywood, Koreatown and MacArthur Park neighborhoods. These mystifying images draw awareness to important aspects of LA’s past that may have been forgotten. The long exposures give the neon a smoldering luminosity, while the palm trees, illuminated with a hand held spotlight serve as a silent witness to the buildings and their history. Artist Statement “My aim in making these images was to call attention to places in the city that are often overlooked and to illuminate aspects of the city’s history which have been forgotten. Literally casting a light on the past, my hope is that these images will renew the enchantment of the city for those of us who have come to take its beauty and strangeness for granted.” About the Artist CHARLES LABELLE obtained his Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has exhibited in galleries throughout the United States and Europe. He was a recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Center Study Fellowship in …
In the Shadow of the Zanja Madre
Project Description Taking as a point of departure Los Angeles’ role as a center of film and drama, the artist presents Union Station and its immediate surroundings as ready for a close up. Artist Statement “Full of history and drama, I’ve aimed to treat the iconic Union Station, as well as the people and places of its surrounding neighborhood, with equal respect-from a solid stone arch in the station to an ephemeral cluster of cotton candy.” About the Artist KEVIN McCOLLISTER has exhibited his work nationally and internationally. His photographs have appeared in publications that include Digital Capture At Night and East of West L.A. Selected Photographs by Kevin McCollister. Display year: 2014 – 2015 Locations: No longer on display