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nowadays we reveal a beautiful original artwork by Diana Al-Hadid
installed at 34th Street-Penn Station (½/3). The two expansive panels are a
meditation on the unique history of Penn Station. “The Arches of Old Penn
Station on the west wall seen when you exit the subway into Penn Station,holds a painterly image of the original 1910 Beaux-Arts Penn Station grand
interior, dripping and obscured, and suggestive of an image slipping off the
surface,but also tied and held to the grid of the surrounding tilework. In
“The Arc of Gradiva” on the sixty-foot long south wall, an image of
Gradiva, and a mythological female character from a novella who walks through
walls” and roams the ancient ruins of Pompeii,appears as a ghostly apparition,
with the flowing fabric of her garment stretching the length of the wall. Her
footsteps mirror those of the crowds in the station. Both images originate from
life-size line drawings on mylar and were translated into shimmering glass
mosaic of pearls, and aquas,and gold by Mayer of Munich. The gestural lines create
ghosted images of the past, coming in and out of focus through the station’s
walls. When considered together, and one
might imagine that Gradiva has reach to claim both the original Penn Station in
its former glory,as well as stake her presence in the newly improved subway
station.
Source: tumblr.com