Art Buses on the Street Mark the Start of Muni Art Week

Artwork like this piece by Reynaldo R. Cayetano Jr. will grace the streets aboard Muni buses starting this week.

After many months of preparation, public participation and creative development, today Muni Art makes its citywide public debut. Through grants and collaboration from San Francisco Beautiful, this project supports local artists while beautifying commutes around the city.

SFMTA’s dressed-to-impress art buses hit the streets in tandem with the systemwide improvements of Muni Forward, also kicking off this week.

Because more service is literally a beautiful thing.  

Actually, it is 50 beautiful things. That’s how many buses now boast the handiwork of artists Ariel Dunitz-Johnson, Phillip Hua, Reynaldo R. Cayeteno Jr., Andria Lo and Todd Berman. This elite collection of creatives rose to the top of over 130 Bay Area artists vying for a Muni bus to call their own. For their efforts, each artist was granted the full interior advertising space in 10 buses to replace with their designs.

Artist Andria Lo honors the beauty and enriching presence of San Francisco’s urban gardens and greening with her project An Urban Garden Portrait.

Each work captures the spirit of San Francisco, translating it into interior car panels so it could ride alongside passengers, the vast landscapes of the City by the Bay bottled into a Muni bus.

Another goal of the project was to spread the dressed buses throughout the City so as many riders as possible would have the opportunity to commute in a moving art gallery. You won't see the artwork until you step aboard, so if you catch one of these lucky vehicles, share your find using #SFMuniArt. Art will be in place through the end of the year.

In the meantime, stay tuned to the SFMTA blog as we celebrate the many other ways and places art plus transportation dazzle in San Francisco. Each day this week we’ll feature examples of art to be seen, experienced or visited through Muni.