Photo credited to: PERRETTI & PARK PICTURES, and HORACE WASHINGTON, FREDERICK HAYES AND JOE SAM.
The San Francisco Arts Commission, through the Public Art Program, will conduct the Central Subway Public Arts Program and create a diverse, exciting range of artworks for the Central Subway stations and adjacent properties. As with all new City and County capital improvement projects, two percent of the eligible Central Subway construction costs will be allocated for public art. The Arts Commission worked with cultural agencies along the Central Subway corridor, local communities and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) to complete a comprehensive Central Subway Arts Master Plan, which is available on the Arts Commission website. The Arts Commission will continue to work with the SFMTA and local communities throughout the Central Subway final design and construction phases to develop a comprehensive public art program that reflects the rich cultural and historic context within which this new transit system will be located.
San Francisco Arts Commission Announces Finalists for the Central Subway Public Art Program 19 Prominent National and Local Artists and Artist Teams will Compete for Opportunities at the Chinatown, Union Square/Market Street and Moscone Stations
Director of Cultural Affairs for the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) Luis R. Cancel announced the finalists for the Central Subway Public Art Program. In conjunction with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA) new Central Subway stretching from Chinatown to South of Market, the SFAC’s Public Art Program will manage the implementation of a diverse and exciting public art program that includes permanent artworks and related arts programming in adjacent neighborhoods. In the spring, the artists’ proposals will be displayed for review and comment on the SFAC’s website and at public locations in the three station neighborhoods for which the proposals have been prepared. In the future, other artists will be selected as additional art opportunities are identified for each of the stations and the adjacent vicinity.
Each station’s short listed candidates will work with the SFAC and SFMTA staff, project architects and community representatives to prepare proposals for two art opportunities at each of three stations: a landmark artwork and a way finding artwork. At the Chinatown Station, the candidates for the landmark artwork are Ming Fay (New York), Yomei Hou (San Francisco) and May Sun (Los Angeles) and for the wayfinding artwork the artists are Carl Cheng (Santa Monica), Tomei Arai (New York), Yunfei Ji (New York) and Faye Zhang (San Francisco). At the Union Square/Market Street Station the candidates for the landmark artwork are Brian Goggin (San Francisco), Ilya and Emilia Kabakov (New York), Erwin Redl (Ohio) and for the wayfinding artwork the artists include Michael Davis and Susan Schwartzenberg (Los Angeles and San Francisco), Keith Godard (New York) and Jim Campbell and Werner Klotz (San Francisco and Brooklyn). At the Moscone Station, the candidates for the landmark artwork are Brian Tolle (Brooklyn), Joyce Hsu (Oakland), Catherine Wagner (San Francisco) and for the wayfinding artwork, Tom Otterness (New York), Mildred Howard (Berkeley) and Michele Oka Doner (New York).
As part of the Central Subway Public Art Program, the SFAC will implement a Central Subway Temporary Art Program extending throughout the design development and construction phases of the Central Subway Project. The Arts Commission will commission a series of temporary community-based outdoor art projects in the three neighborhoods along the transit corridor route. The goals of the art projects are to engage community members in the development of artworks/projects that reflect the neighborhood’s life, history and culture in relation to transit.
One established, nonprofit organization rooted in each of the neighborhoods will be selected by an independent panel through an open application process to develop and implement the art projects in collaboration with the Arts Commission. The first in the series will take place in the Chinatown District and will officially kick off in March and continue through 2011. The first two-year project cycles in the Union Square/Market Street District and the Moscone/Yerba Buena District will begin simultaneously later this year. For more information visit www.sfartscommission.org/pubartcollection.
