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Local Odysseys MTA Metro Station
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Local Odysseys MTA Metro Station detail
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Local Odysseys MTA Metro Station detail
Local Odysseys ©1994
Metro Blue Line, Los Angeles, Anaheim Street Station
40″ diameter porcelain enamel panels in pre-existing pylons
Fabricator: Enameltec, Canada
Anaheim Street Metro Station, Local Odysseys, is about voyage — the trip to Los Angeles from Long Beach becomes a metaphor for the larger journey one takes through life. The work honors each of the dominant communities in the city — Latino, African American, Asian and South Pacific, and Caucasian, and contains photographs of 51 stellar volunteers representing each of these groups. The people pictured were chosen by community leaders from more than 100 volunteers who head neighborhood associations, clean grafitti from their schools, tutor students, bring meals to seniors, and work in churches, schools and community centers. City elements were chosen because they are recognizable to all of those living in Long Beach, such as the Queen Mary and Villa Riviera; the large art historical figures were used to symbolize the different major communities of the city and contain qualities to which we all could aspire. The resulting artwork is fourteen, 40″ diameter, 4-color collages made of porcelain enamel, and was fabricated by Enameltec in Toronto, Canada and installed by Carlson & Company of Sun Valley, California in 1994. The piece has become a popular neighborhood focal point, and was pictured in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s “Art in Transit” publication, as well as El Pais (the main Spanish newspaper); Environmental Art (a French magazine); and the Press Telegram, the Long Beach newspaper.
“Though her art uses the techniques of collage and the aesthetics of photography, Braunstein considers herself neither a collagist nor a photographer. But while Braunstein always uses found images, never using the camera to create images, her art is in fact more closely related to photography than to collage, particularly to aspects of darkroom photography in her manipulating, clarifying, extracting, combining, and reproducing existing images. Her sole use of the camera is mechanical, to reproduce her collaged images so that in their final material form her words may appear to be authentic photo documentation rather than pieced paper constructions. She exploits the appearance of photography to deny the fact of her paper collages and in order to simulate documentary “reality.” Braunstein thus uses the camera for one of its oldest and original purposes: to fictionalize, much as such pioneering photographers as Oscar G Rejlander (1813-1875), Henry Peach Robinson (1830-1901 or the cinematographer Georges Méliès (1861-1938) created images that never existed except in their art.”
“In addition to the photo collages or montages, Braunstein also creates books. The books have a far more hand-wrought quality, and are put into the world more as objects — as things — than as images of other things. But there are close similarities of concept and techniques with the photographs. As always, Braunstein utilizes existing sources — other books — to create her own books. She combines images extracted from her usual sources of magazines, books and printed matter, with illustrations or text pages from bound volumes such as children’s storybooks or scientific manuals. Some of her books “read” like normal books — that is, from one page to the next, in a sequence from first to last, and often there is a visual, if not always logical, narrative. But other of her books are sculptural with holes, windows and other contours cut through the pages, so that in turning from page to page, new information accumulates layer upon layer; these books are read not only from one page to another, but from one page through another. In the hands of the reader, one of Braunstein’s sculptural books becomes a kinetic sculpture whose visual and intelligible content changes with each turn of the page.”
“The magic of Terry’s work is that she has given new meaning and unexpected context to a common symbol we all recognize. The combination of the grand scale and the intimate, often nostalgic images act to draw visitors to the site and invite interaction. Rarely, in public art projects, is the resolution of formal issues so beautifully married with the subject matter, which, for so many, is the heart of the memorial. Happily, Terry’s sculpture is an object of extraordinary beauty that succeeds on all levels and for all ages.”
“There are as many definitions of “art” as there are expressions of it. If art is defined as a visual philosophy of life or a search for meaning, Terry Braunstein creates it. Whether expressed as a poignant view of human behavior, a nostalgic perception of things past, an honest look at life and loss, the wisdom learned from collective experience, desperate longing for love and desire, or anxious hope for the future, Braunstein’s art explores it all. Working in a variety of media that includes . . . . installations. . . she creates work that stimulates the mind and the heart on myriad levels.
“To create a picture in the way that Terry Braunstein does is, in essence, to reassemble pieces of our familiar world into a surprising, yet convincing, new world. . . . There are no ready answers to the questions Braunstein poses, and no promise of a resolution forthcoming. In fact, there seem only to be more questions, and more cross-references. By importing the loaded content of mass media imagery into her artistic landscape, she not only challenges the assumptions implicit in contemporary culture but also addresses one of the basic aesthetic dilemmas: the interpretive gap between appearance and truth.”