Alison Saar’s projects at the Metro-North Railroad Harlem-125 Street station encourage preservation of Harlem’s great legacy and celebrate its rich history. “copacetic” (2018), an expansion of her 1991 “Let the Lone Whistle Moan”, is a panoramic scene of imagined dancers, singers, musicians and patrons enjoying Harlem’s heyday of the 1930s and 40s. The glass artwork was created from the artist’s original woodcut prints, which as she explains, “gives a nod to the work of the many great African American artists of the Harlem Renaissance that have used the same medium in their practice.” The upper windows are inspired by the Harlem-125 Street Station’s wrought iron work and designs from the African diaspora.
More of Saar’s work is now on view in the Faurschou Foundation’s Greenpoint inaugural exhibition “The Red Bean Grows in the South”.