The American artist Sarah Sze materializes in Blueprint for a Landscape her work with the most public and challenging vocation to date. Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design to collaborate in the design of installations exhibited in existing stations along Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the author states: “A subway station is one of the most democratic places you can find. It has regular local audiences as well as international and ad hoc audiences. It’s always a discovery, seen in transit, not an art destination”.
Blueprint for a Landscape understands each entrance along with the connecting platform at 96th Street station as an opportunity to study our behavior through space. The project consists of 4 murals and 12 panels totaling 4,300 tiles in two different formats (20 mm thick). These porcelain tiles manufactured by Alcalagres and Estudio Cerámico have a total surface area of approximately 14,000 square metres.
Thus, the ceramic pieces incorporate manipulated photographs of familiar objects – paper sheets, scaffolding, birds, trees and foliage – captured at a whirlwind speed that reflect the dizzying rhythm of the passengers who come to the station every day. “They were obsessed with this idea of accelerating the experience of time, especially through transit.”
