Inside MARTA's double life as an art gallery

This story originally appeared in the May/June 2016 edition of Living Intown Magazine.

Atlanta boasts another extensive collection of artwork in the public sphere: 38 creations owned by MARTA — including sculptures, tiles, wall panels and murals — are on display at each train station. Many are so skillfully blended into the architecture that thousands of riders may pass by every day without appreciating the designs as original artwork.

“When the stations were built, MARTA leveraged the construction with each piece of art,” says Connie Krisak, MARTA’s director of architecture. “So, for example, at Five Points, you see a terra cotta sculpture with window glazing that’s also a piece of history connected to Underground.”

Estimating the collection’s worth is difficult. “I’m sure the value has exceeded what we paid for it, because art, for the most part, appreciates,” Krisak says. “But we don’t have a value we can put on it.”

Jayant Patel, a MARTA project manager for 31 years, explains that when stations were designed in the early 1970s, the art budget for each stop was $50,000, or one half of 1 percent of the station cost — whichever was less. That same amount went into the last station, North Springs, which opened in 2000.

“In the beginning of each station’s design, we created a team of architects and a council of local artists from Fulton, DeKalb, the city of Atlanta and local art schools like Georgia State,” Patel says. “The committee selected the artist for each station, who worked with the architects from the beginning. We did not limit or give directions to the artists. They came up with ideas of what they wanted to include.”

The art often became an integral part of the architecture, Patel points out. “For instance, at West Lake, a wall of tiles was already part of the station construction, so the artist worked off that to create graphics in the rest of the station,” he says.

Katherine Mitchell, a contemporary Georgia artist who is devoted to the environment and public transporation, was commissioned to do the art (pyramidal designs in colorful'moving' lines) in the new Sandy Springs MARTA station. (PHIL SKINNER /staff).

Atlanta artist Steve Steinman was tapped to come up with visuals for the Buckhead station, which opened just before the 1996 Olympics.

“There was a competition, and I got a set of blueprints that were larger than I am to work with,” Steinman says with a laugh. “I had to put together a presentation in a week’s time, so in a very intense few days, I made models and drawings. A few weeks later, they called and said I was their man.”

Steinman’s winning entry tapped into a thread found in much of his work. “I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of motion and static objects, as well as power, and a train is a powerful object that comes speeding by,” he says. “So I created wall panels that were geometric sheets of rubber that had been pulled, squeezed, twisted and crinkled so you’d feel the pressure of the object being pulled. If you stand on the platform, you see 192 of them that were cast into the walls of the stations. They’re not just stuck on the walls, they are the walls, in the concrete.”

At the time of the project, Steinman was dean of the design school at nearby American Intercontinental University, and he recruited students to paint the reliefs. “We had scaffolding along the tracks where volunteers worked from 8 in the morning until sundown, applying paint and a sealer we came up with that was graffiti-proof and supposed to last 20 years.”

Two decades later, Steinman’s panels could use a touch-up, like much of MARTA’s art collection. “Any outdoor work that’s exposed to the elements needs to be maintained,” he says. “Nothing lasts forever.”

The locations of the MARTA collection can make refurbishing a challenge.

Steve Steinman, a local artist, was tapped to design the artistic elements at the Buckhead MARTA station. The work was installed before the Olympics to mark the extension of the line farther north. (Jenni Girtman/ Atlanta Event Photography)

“Some of these installations are not easily accessible, like on the side of the tracks,” says MARTA spokesman Lyle Harris. “The cleaning has to be done when trains are not running, and that’s also a time usually reserved for track maintenance. It’s a delicate balance of safety and security of customers and employees.”

While each piece is different and may have special maintenance needs, a thorough cleaning will do the trick for most. The Oakland, Dunwoody, Midtown and Arts Center stations were recently spruced up, drawing attention from riders.

“Arts Center was pretty dirty from years of brake dust and the environment,” Krisak says. “As we were cleaning it, people realized what was there. It was amazing to see the new colors that had been hidden. Countless people said it looks fabulous, and they have never really noticed it before.”

Other stations have art in need of repainting, resealing or replacing. “Most have endured the test of time, but a few have been impacted by water infiltration, deterioration and dirt,” Krisak says. “At Lenox, the aluminum panels that create a pattern need to be replaced. Over time, the dust that comes from the vehicles takes a toll.”

Krisak’s team has documented the status of each piece and is producing a list for those that need immediate care, which involves another obstacle: money.

“In the beginning, there’s huge excitement about getting local artists and design firms on board to create this art,” Krisak says. “Then it gets built, but there’s no funding for long-term maintenance. For instance, the glass panels in the Dunwoody station will need a special contractor who can work on them. At Five Points, we have a piece of terra cotta that’s very fragile and will need a curator to restore it. But budget limitations keep us from getting to all of them.”

Despite the challenges, Steinman says, it’s imperative to maintain not just MARTA’s public art, but any piece designed to enhance an environment.

“Art is certainly a mirror of a society,” he says. “Through time, societies are measured by their legacies of culture. We need to make a conscious effort to make sure things survive.

“The average person may not have a venue to see it — a lot of people don’t go to museums — but art that works in tandem with the architecture to create an environment is part of the concept of bringing art to the masses.”