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Metro urban artists find a bigger stage

Urban artists whose work was displayed on the Tyne and Wear Metro system are to move on to a bigger stage – the outside wall of London’s Tate Modern art gallery. Brazilian twins Os Gemeos and New York-based collective Faile were among artists whose work was displayed on walls at Jesmond Metro station in 2006. The works on tunnel walls formed part of the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art’s Spank The Monkey exhibition of urban art.

Os Gemeos also produced murals for an underpass at Howdon Metro station, North Tyneside, while other work on Metro included pieces by Space Invader and Shepard Fairey. Space Invader’s small video game style icons can still be seen round Gateshead Interchange, while posters by Shepard Fairey continue to hang above stairwells at Four Lane Ends, Regent Centre and Heworth stations.

Andy Bairstow, Nexus Communications Director, said: “We’re very pleased to see that where Nexus led Tate Modern has followed. The urban art at Jesmond attracted a huge amount of positive feedback, with people coming to the station purely to see it and take photographs.

“While not to absolutely everyone’s taste it was an exciting and stimulating addition to the journey for Metro passengers for the few months it was in place.”

Tate Modern has asked some of the world’s most acclaimed street artists to produce work for the building’s Thames-side façade this summer. It will be the first commission to use the facade and each artist will have an area of about 15x12 metres for the exhibition, entitled Street Art at Tate Modern.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .