Art on the Underground

In 1908 the tube had got as far as Golders Green and Frank Pick wanted to be sure the public knew. It was I suppose the Crossrail of its day.

You will recall that Frank Pick was the chap who initiated the iconic tube roundel and the tube map.

This is the first Underground branded map from 1908, showing the Underground Electric Railways Company’s (UERL) lines and those of the other tube companies and the Metropolitan Railway. It is peculiar that the “Army & Navy and Auxiliary Stores” is marked at St James’s Park; did the company pay for this placement? Prepare to shed a tear, this venerable company, founded in 1871, fell into the hands of House of Fraser in 1973 and faces an uncertain future.

Since 1908 there has been art and sometimes poetry on the Underground to enrich the journeys of commuters, or sometimes to infuriate them (that’s not grammatically correct but you know what I mean). The latest is on display at Gloucester Road station on the District and Circle line platforms.

In case you don’t “get it” hear what artist Heather Phillipson has to say about her creation:

“It enlarges the egg as a nucleus of conflict,” explains Heather. “I wanted Gloucester Road station to become a parallel ‘scape’ – a subterranean disturbance, in which hyper-real, creaturely simulations and analogue counterparts dwarf passengers.

“Using the bold, simplified visual techniques of early computer gaming graphics, both stylistically and as an organising principle, the passing platform becomes a sequence of overlapping vulnerabilities and escape tactics, in which so-called human and avian – winner/loser – roles might reverse. We too begin as eggs. According to this logic, humans are also at the mercy of weaponised food, exposed embryos, dangling, leaking and mechanical equipment, unignorable disorder and potential revolt.”

She adds: “Throughout, the egg recurs as a harbinger and taunt – not only as one of the most fundamental forms in reproductive systems and as representation of fertility, strength, birth and futurity, but also, crucially, (over)production, consumption, exploitation and fragility.”

I still don’t really get it but it is rather fun and being 80 metres long you can’t miss it. It will be in place for about a year so you may well see it.