7th St/Metro Center Station
The Movies: Fantasies and The Movies: Spectacles, 1993
Joyce Kozloff, artist
Installed at eye level along the platform walls of the Metro Center Station, Kozloff’s two long and narrow hand painted ceramic tile murals, The Movies: Fantasies, and The Movies: Spectacles, resemble an unfolding film strip. Kozloff uses imagery from hundreds of films. The Movies: Fantasies, located on the west platform, is an exploration of science fiction and horror films. Kozloff broke the mural into ten “chapters” each approximately ten feet in length, representing flying monsters; swimming monsters; giant reptiles; monsters with big brains; apes; hairy monsters (like werewolves); weird plants and insects (also bizarre forces of nature); spooks, ghosts, and vampires; robots and zombies; and spacemen.
The Movies: Spectacles, on the east platform, features what Kozloff most loves about the movies: their sheer beauty. She divided the mural into the four classical elements: water, fire, air, and earth. Where in Fantasies Kozloff focuses on portraiture, in Spectacles she experiments with space and time. The images stretch across several tiles or interrupt one another.
"This work is an affirmation of my love for film, and for the city of Los Angeles. The murals are dense with images from hundreds of movies, so that daily commuters can discover and enjoy them over time. The cinema is a shared culture—there's hardly anyone who doesn't enjoy movies. I have watched people walk through the station and cluster around the artwork, sometimes to debate about it."