Underground, overground, art is everywhere
Heathrow's Art on the Underground commission by Joy Gregory is just the latest addition to the amazing free gallery of our transport system
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Public art is a tricky thing to get right. It needs to be clearly visible, but not fight with its context. It needs to have visual interest in and of itself, but enough artistic merit to be taken seriously. It should enhance a place, but have a relationship with it.
It also needs to work hard (there is never enough money) and toe the tedious line of bureaucracy that is associated with the public realm (is there emergency vehicle access? Will it encroach on infrastructure like a sewer or cemetery? Does it get in the way of wheelchair users?). It’s a wonder, frankly, it ever gets commissioned at all.
One longstanding project in London that has been cheerfully navigating these choppy waters for years is Art on the Underground. A legacy of the great Frank Pick, who was responsible for the London Underground’s distinctive brand identity (and for its successful inter-war expansion into the suburbs) and held a strong belief that art should be integral to public life, every year the programme commissions a wide range of contemporary artworks, both temporary and permanent, for the joy and edification of the millions of Londoners and visitors who ride the transport system every day.
Last week saw the newest addition to the current collection of artworks. At Heathrow Terminal 4 Underground station, British artist Joy Gregory, 64, unveiled A Taste of Home - 24 billboards running through the station, combining photography, monoprints and poetry to continue her work on themes of migration, food and plant knowledge, and memory.
Gregory’s work explores race, gender, social justice and cultural differences in contemporary society. Rooted in dialogue with the community of refugees and asylum seekers currently living in temporary accommodation near the airport, it plays on Heathrow’s status as a gateway to London, a portal of entry and exit (the station, in combination with the other two that serve the airport, regularly sees more than a million souls pass through it every month, which is the kind of audience the British Museum can only dream of).
I wanted to flag it because I think it’s easy to forget just how lucky we are to have all this free art around us, available to be engaged with serendipitously during our working day; indeed, that it’s there at all. At Gloucester Road station, say, which has since 2001 served as an ever-changing gallery for projects by artists including David Batchelor, Cindy Sherman, Sarah Morris and, currently, Monster Chetwynd’s Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily, a bonkers tribute to the Amazonian Water Lily, which was the inspiration for Joseph Paxton’s pioneering design for the Crystal Palace. Of course.
Or on the Circle line platform at Edgware Road, from where you can see Jacqueline Poncelet’s Wrapper, adorning the outside of the Transport for London substation. Or at Embankment, where Robyn Denny’s cheerful enamel panels bring a pop of colour to the strip-lit platforms, while David Gentleman’s enlarged woodcut panels over on the Northern line at Charing Cross portray the construction of Queen Eleanor’s Cross.
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Then there’s Eduardo Paolozzi’s vibrant mosaics at Tottenham Court Road, and Daniel Buren’s bright, bold commission (using his trademark stripes) upstairs at the same station. Michael Craig Martin’s Street Life practically dances across the walls of Woolwich Arsenal’s DLR, while Clare Woods’ Evenings’ Hill beautifully abstracts landscape at Hampstead Heath overground station - and have you noticed Eric Aumonier’s stylised sculpture The Archer, reminding passengers at East Finchley of the area’s historic status as an ancient hunting ground?
And of course there are temporary commissions, some of which are much missed when they’re gone. I loved Larry Achiampong’s Pan African Flags for the Relic Travellers’ Alliance, which re-imagined London Underground’s iconic roundel for Westminster Underground station from 2019 to 2020, transforming it with colours that speak symbolically to various African diasporic identities. I wish it were still on display. I like Jem Perucchini’s Birth of a Nation mural at Brixton, above you as you walk into the station and head down the stairs, but I’m excited to see what Claudette Johnson will do with the same site from November.
There is so much of it, and it’s ever changing, and it really ought to be difficult to miss. You can find out more about the many commissions across the network here, where you can also download a map of where they all are. Or you can just start your journey, put your phone away and look up.