Arts in Transit is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary with dual exhibit looking as its past, present, and future (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

New York Transit Museum
Boerum Pl. & Schermerhorn St.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 2011, $6
718-694-1600
New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex
Grand Central Terminal
Shuttle Passage next to Station Masters’ Office
Through October 31, free
212-878-0106
www.mta.info

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of its wonderful Arts in Transit program, which has been beautifying stations in the New York City subway and on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North since 1985, with a two-part exhibit that continues through October 31 at the Gallery Annex in Grand Central Terminal and through February at the Transit Museum in Brooklyn. The show examines dozens and dozens of the more than two hundred installed works, as well as some that are in progress, including a brief history of each installation and the artist and displaying photographs, fabrication samples, proposal drawings, silkscreen studies, and models of the final pieces. The exhibit also explains the selection process and divides the works into such categories as Transformation, Tradition Renewed and Reinvented, and Monumentality. Among the projects on view at the annex are Houston Cornwill’s 1986 “Open Secret” at the 125th St. 4/5/6 station, Mark Gibian’s 1996 “Cable Crossing” at the Brooklyn Bridge City Hall 4/5/6, R. M. Fischer’s 1992 “Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel Clock,” Sol Lewitt’s 2009 “Whirls and Twirls” at Columbus Circle, Michele Oka Doner’s “Radiant Site” at 34th St. Herald Square, and Ming Fay’s 2004 “Shad Crossing” and “Delancey Orchard” at the Delancey St.-Essex St. F/M/J/Z.

Exhibit focuses on such Arts in Transit installations as Al Held’s “Passing Through” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The larger Brooklyn section of the exhibit includes looks at Jacob Lawrence’s 2001 “New York in Transit” in Times Square, Tom Otterness’s “Life Underground” at the 14th St. A/C/E/L, Ingo Fast’s upcoming “On and Off the Boardwalk” at the Beach 67th St. A, Faith Ringgold’s 1996 “Flying Home: Harlem Heroes and Heroines (Downtown and Uptown)” at the 125th St. 2/3, and the 2000 “For Want of a Nail” collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History at the 81st St. B/C as well as original subway posters and a short film about the program. Other prominent artists who have participated in the project are Vito Acconci, Elizabeth Murray, Nancy Spero, Jane Dickson, Doug and Mike Starn, Jean Shin, Peter Sis, Daniel Kirk, and Roy Lichtenstein. On November 25, the museum is offering a tour of new projects on the Brighton Line, featuring works by Mary Temple, Jason Middlebrook, and Rita MacDonald ($25). We absolutely love Arts in Transit and have been documenting many of the projects on twi-ny and our Flickr site since we began in 2001. In the midst of all the maelstrom of the city’s transportation system, these installations offer a much-needed respite, like mini-galleries, on your way to where you need to be. After seeing this dual exhibit, you’ll spend more time in the future checking out these splendid works. Also on display at the museum, which is one of the gems of the city and a great place for families, are “Steel, Stone & Backbone: Building New York’s Subways 1900-1925,” “On the Streets: New York’s Trolleys,” “The Triborough Bridge: Robert Moses and the Automobile Age,” and “Moving the Millions: New York City’s Subways from Its Origins to the Present.”