Video Uncovers Underground Art Treasures

Video Uncovers Underground Art Treasures, Busy commuters often don’t notice the museum-worthy works in the New York City subway. Art in NYC subway stations (VIDEO), The New York City subway is not normally a place to take in the view. But commuters who slow down might be surprised to find museum-worthy works of art from the likes of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein (a mural in the Times Square station) and minimalist Sol LeWitt (a tile drawing in the Columbus Circle station) enhancing their subway stops.

A video from Tim Sessler and Brandon Bloch, “The Art Underground-NYC Subway,” which is getting some buzz, follows a tour of the subway gems led by Ruddy Harootian.

Harootian leads “art crawls” of the underground treasures. As he writes on his website, “It’s a unique experience to see art in this environment, away from the structured and traditional space a museum provides. Featuring works by Jacob Lawrence (New York in Transit), Tom Otterness (Life Underground), Stephen Johnson (Dekalb Improvisation), Bill Brand (Masstransiscope), Keith Godard (Memories of twenty-third Street), Toby Buonagurio (Times Square Times: 35 Times), and more.”

Blogger and tour guide Harootian thought of the idea of subway tours while looking around the 14th Street station and realizing that nobody else was.

“Most commuters weren’t even noticing all of the bronze figures by Tom Otterness (Life Underground),” Harootian wrote in an email to Yahoo News. “I kind of laughed because it’s true how NY’ers are always in a rush. I then started taking a few images and as soon as I did that about 3 people came up to me. They started taking their own pictures and one asked me if I knew who the artists was. That’s when I realized I wanted to do an art project based on the NYC subway Arts for Transit program.”