Metro’s train-station sculpture project is giving new meaning to “art in motion”
By Daniel Durchholz
Photograph by Frank Di Piazza
For too long, the discussion of public art in St. Louis has been dominated by talk of Richard Serra’s “Twain,” that triangle of hulking steel panels that has drawn as much negativity over the years as it has rust. The folks at Metro are hoping that the pieces in their Arts in Transit program will shift the conversation about public art and make it a little easier for all those sculpture skeptics to get on board with the concept.
Literally.
Lindsey Stouffer is one of a handful of local sculptors and artists who are contributing installations at eight stations along the new Cross County Extension. (Art communities from as far away as
San Francisco and Brooklyn are also represented.) Stouffer’s installation was completed in late September. The stainless-steel screens in her “Hoi Polloi” piece play with light, creating a moiré effect—and giving weary travelers something to talk about, if not ponder, before catching the train to work. “I wanted to play off the gathering place/amphitheater concept and the light qualities,” she says of the large, subterranean space at the Forsyth station where her piece is located. “As people walk behind and in front of the screens, it’ll play with the optics and with the way they look.”
If it’s a little hard to imagine (or decipher, for that matter), not to worry—that’s kind of the point. In a roundabout way, Stouffer’s original inspiration for the sculpture was a frontier-era public drainage system that had local conspiracy hounds scratching their heads and theorizing that someone was conducting a futuristic energy-conduction project. “There was some really ludicrous speculation, and I thought that ‘What is it?’ idea was really relevant,” Stouffer says. She got some equally puzzled responses from AIT when she revealed the plans for her installation, and she’s hoping to elicit a similar sense of “huh?” from Metro travelers—but in a good way. “Hopefully the impact is one of intrigue and curiosity,” she says.
Cambridge, Mass., artist Ellen Driscoll seemed almost fated to contribute to the project. She used to work on a Macintosh computer that would constantly crash and reset the date to 1904, a year that, of course, resonates locally. Her design for “The View from Here” is a “visual slice” of the axle and spokes from the famed Ferris wheel of the 1904 World’s Fair, sandblasted into mirrored tiles. It’s located, appropriately enough, at the Forest Park station. “Given that strange connection with the date that I had from my Mac, it’s something I almost had to do,” she says.
The money for the artworks was built into MetroLink’s budget from the very beginning. A total of $3 million has been spent, which includes everything from the installations themselves to aesthetically pleasing retaining walls and other enhancements.
In a stroke of pragmatism befitting a public-works employee, AIT director David Allen says that the pieces’ power to encourage a more positive discourse on public art around town is great and all, but their notable practical benefit has been just as rewarding: “One comment I’ve received that was really gratifying is that it helps people recognize the differences between the stations—they know they’ve arrived at a particular station by the artwork.”
“It’s almost like a big art walk,” Stouffer says excitedly of the connect-the-dots kinetic-gallery concept. So now that she’s conquered the world of train stations, might she move on to loftier transportation hubs, such as, say, planes? “I haven’t even thought about that, but that’s fantastic,” she yells with a laugh, and you can almost see her sketching out a runway installation of windmill-like head-scratchers in her mind—but then reality brings her back: “I don’t know, though ... can you imagine the logistics of trying to build something at the airport right now?"
