From:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/fe...th-art-project

*Tube celebrates 150th birthday with labyrinth art project*

Artist Mark Wallinger reveals details of 270 black and white enamel
works that will hang in London's Underground stations

Mark Brown, arts correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 7 February 2013 17.35 GMT

They are not mazes (confusing, exasperating, easy to get lost in) but
labyrinths (one way in, one way out) said the artist Mark Wallinger as
he revealed details of 270 black and white enamel artworks that will
forever hang in London's tube stations.

The Labyrinth project is two years in the making and follows an
approach by London Underground to fulfil the network's largest ever
art commission in what is its 150th birthday year.

Wallinger said he was honoured to get the commission, especially since
he was brought up close to the Central line in Chigwell and fondly
remembers waving at tube drivers to try to get a toot and then falling
asleep every night to the duh-dum-duh-dum of the trains.

"There is something particularly cherishable about the tube in that
millions of people put their trust in it every day, millions are
hugger-mugger together on it, people fall asleep among strangers –
that suggests a special kind of affection. To make something that will
be noticeable or become part of the furniture is a great opportunity."

Each station will have an enamel panel measuring 60cm by 60cm with a
different labyrinth on it, made by the company which does all the
network's other enamel signs. Ten were installed on Thursday at the
central London stations St James's Park, Baker Street, Bank,
Embankment, Green Park, King's Cross St Pancras, Oxford Circus,
Tottenham Court Road, Victoria and Westminster.

By the summer all 270 will be in place and Wallinger admitted it may
bring out the geek in tube enthusiasts as he has numbered them
according to the route taken on the 2009 record breaking Tube
Challenge.

The Tube Challenge is the name accepted by the Guinness Book of
Records for those keen, eccentric people who attempt to visit every
station in the fastest possible time. So when Andi James, Martin Hazel
and Steve Wilson set a record (overtaken in 2011) of 16 hours, 44
minutes and 16 seconds they began at the end of the Metropolitan line
in Chesham and finished at Heathrow Terminal 5.

Wallinger said he was inspired by tube icons – the tube map designed
by Harry Beck and the network's familiar roundels. An early idea was
to use circular facing mirrors on platforms to create infinitive
reflections. "That was impractical as it turns out," he said. "But I
was wedded to the idea of circles."

From that came the idea of mazes and labyrinths and the strength of
the latter was that there is only one way in and one way out, unlike
mazes which set out to confuse with their tricks and dead ends. "As
long as you keep going in a labyrinth you will come to your centre,"
he said. Each work will have a red cross on it, representing a
starting point.

The labyrinths are made but only half have been assigned to the
stations with more decisions pending. His idea for the St James's Park
work was a tripartite theme, he said, what with it being bounded by
The Mall, Horse Guard's and Birdcage Walk. "As far as I can I try to
match them up but there are stations I haven't been on or even heard
of."

Wallinger is one of the UK's best known artists, winning the Turner
prize in 2007 for State Britain, his recreation of Brian Haw's
Parliament Square protest shown on the central galleries of Tate
Britain. Or people might remember him dressed as a bear and wandering
round Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie or his 1999 Fourth Plinth
sculpture Ecce Homo. He is also a vocal public art enthusiast although
his idea of installing a 50-metre white horse at Ebbsfleet remains
stalled because of a lack of funding.

Tamsin Dillon, head of Art on the Underground, said the tube system
represented one of the best public spaces for art in the UK.
"Something like 4 million people every day have an opportunity to
encounter the art works that we commission with a billion people,
every year, using the network."

Wallinger follows in a noble tradition of artists producing work for
the underground. Those who look up at the network's headquarters in St
James's Park will see reliefs by Jacob Epstein, Eric Gill and Henry
Moore. Then there are the 1930s posters by artists including Man Ray,
Paul Nash and Edward Wadsworth. And since 2000 there has been the Art
on the Underground project which has featured works by Cindy Sherman,
Jeremy Deller and last year Michael Landy who collected stories of
underground acts of kindness.

The announcement was made at LU's headquarters above St James's Park
station – an event for which there were, appropriately, minor delays.
The network's managing director, Mike Brown, calmly explained that
smoke had been sucked into a vent shaft at Victoria tube station
necessitating a mass evacuation during rush hour. "I'm sorry if you
got caught out in that. At least it wasn't raining," he said.

As he says, with labyrinths you can't get lost. Mazes would've been more interesting.