Today we reveal a beautiful new artwork by Diana Al-Hadid installed at 34th Street-Penn Station (2,3). The two expansive panels are a meditation on the unique history of Penn Station. “The Arches of Old Penn Station” on the west wall seen when you exit the subway into Penn Station, holds a painterly image of the original 1910 Beaux-Arts Penn Station grand interior, dripping and obscured, suggestive of an image slipping off the surface, but also tied and held to the grid of the surrounding tilework. In “The Arc of Gradiva” on the sixty-foot long south wall, an image of Gradiva, a mythological female character from a novella who “walks through walls” and roams the ancient ruins of Pompeii, appears as a ghostly apparition, with the flowing fabric of her garment stretching the length of the wall. Her footsteps mirror those of the crowds in the station. Both images originate from life-size line drawings on mylar and were translated into shimmering glass mosaic of pearls, aquas, and gold by Mayer of Munich. The gestural lines create ghosted images of the past, coming in and out of focus through the station’s walls. When considered together, one might imagine that Gradiva has come to claim both the original Penn Station in its former glory, as well as stake her presence in the newly improved subway station.
