The Art Along The Metro K Line Tells LA's Stories. Find Out How They Were Made

When I ride the L.A. Metro, I'm usually in a hurry: I'm rushing to get to work, catch a movie, or see friends I was supposed to meet up with 15 minutes ago. But every so often, I have a second to sit and look around the station to appreciate the public artwork on display for the price of a Metro ticket.

I'm always impressed at the quality of the artwork — Margaret Garcia's Tree of Califas at Universal City and May Sun's Untitled at Hollywood/Western are a couple personal favorites.

With the opening of the K Line in 2022, Metro riders now have even more works to admire. And the stories behind those works are front and center at Here: Arts and Culture Along the K, now on display until Feb. 25 at the Museum of African American Art in Baldwin Hills.

Zipporah Yamamoto, Metro's senior director of public art, told me that Metro wanted to highlight the process behind the art and show how the works came to be.

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"All the artists were selected by a community based panel of arts professionals," Yamamoto said. "Over the course of more than a decade of working on this project with the local community, over 150 artists, arts professionals, and arts and cultural organizations were involved in shaping the K Line. But when you go through the stations, you may not know that."

Geoff McFetridge is one of the artists whose work is featured in the exhibit. He designed the artwork Us as a Measure of Openness for the Westchester/Veterans station, which is currently the K Line's terminus while the station connecting the train to LAX is under construction.

"The conceptual core of it is this idea that living in a city like Los Angeles is like living in a city that's constantly changing," McFetridge said. "So these people are like carrying the weight and then these people are risen up. It's almost like these people are carrying the stair that then these people step on to rise up."

The exhibit at the Museum of African American Art features studies and sketches of the final public artworks displayed on the K Line, like Geoff McFetridge's studies (pictured right) for his work "Us As a Measure of Openness."

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Courtesy of Metro

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McFetridge said he wanted the work to speak to the change happening in South L.A. as its neighborhoods deal with gentrification.

"Something like, for example, a train line coming to your neighborhood — there's going to be all these changes that are out of your control, and some of it's going to be great, and some of it's going to be maybe bad for you," McFetridge said.

Other artists drew inspiration from history, like Shinique Smith's Only Light, Only Love, which is on display at the K Line's station on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The piece takes quotes from King and places them in a mosaic with mirrors so viewers can see themselves reflected alongside King's words.

These studies by artist Shinique Smith incorporated the words of Martin Luther King Jr. into public art. The full artwork is on display at the King Boulevard K Line Metro station.

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Courtesy of Metro

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In addition to the visual art on display at the museum, the exhibit also features video vignettes by documentarian Mobolaji Olambiwonnu, who profiled the artists behind the works along the K Line.

Olambiwonnu also interviewed community members, including the owner of Randy's Donuts and elders who remembered the streetcar that ran through South L.A. in the first half of the 20th century.

"Communities are made up of people, and so for me the videos are really about, how do I showcase the humanity, and how do I connect people with the community?" he said. "So yes, there's a train, yes, there's infrastructure, but around that infrastructure, there are people, there are businesses, and those people are what make the community what it is."

Metro is able to feature so many artists because of its Percent for Art Program, which sets aside a fraction of construction costs for each train station for public art.

And Metro's public arts offering will only expand in the months to come — the station connecting the K Line to LAX and two stations extending the D Line to Mid-Wilshire are both expected to open later this year.