Transport for London’s (TfL’s) Art on the Underground programme has unveiled a new permanent artwork by London-based duo Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings at London’s only Grade I listed Underground station, St James’s Park.
Angels of History is the first mosaic created by the artist duo, and is composed of six panels, each measuring 1.5 x 1 metres, prominently installed in the station’s atrium. The artwork continues Quinlan and Hastings’s exploration of the relationship between public space, architecture, state infrastructure, gender, and sexual identity. Recent works have predominately been fresco paintings, a medium traditionally associated with historic, religious artworks. Quinlan and Hastings’s paintings depict various power dynamics, class and social relations, and positions of authority playing out in public space, raising the question: who does the street belong to?
The new mosaic draws from the rich history of St James’s Park station, which for more than 80 years was home to London Underground’s iconic Headquarters, 55 Broadway, situated directly above the station. It was the tallest building in London on its completion in 1929, and was immediately considered radical, in part thanks to the sculptures carved into its stone façade by artists including Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore. The choice to realise their new work in mosaic – a material frequently employed in post-war civic spaces – is a new departure for the artists, who have drawn inspiration directly from the Roman mosaic tradition.
Angels of History is inspired by Walter Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), which describes Paul Klee’s painting Angelus Novus as an image of the “angel of history.” Quinlan and Hastings’s work centres on two triptychs featuring androgynous, angelic figures, whose ambivalent gazes turn towards one another and fall over passing travellers. The pair reflected on the angels of the Old Testament, who were “at once sublime and terrible to behold.”
The figures are set against an uncanny landscape of rolling hillsides. Full-scale frescos, produced in Cornwall, were painted by the pair as a template for the final work. Cornwall’s wild and ancient landscape, particularly Zennor’s megalithic pagan monuments, influenced the artwork’s barren, sparsely populated landscape, which speaks to an ecology in crisis; a future in which few relics of humanity persist.
Whilst making Angels of History the pair became interested in Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project, an unfinished collection of writings on urban life in Paris during the 19th century, where he argues that the most perilous moments of crisis aren’t when everything portends to change, but rather when “the status quo threatens to be preserved.”
Architecture plays an important role in Quinlan and Hastings’s practice, as a force that shapes people’s behaviour and desires. The work depicts isolated buildings: a row of post-war terraced houses, Art Deco skyscrapers, and 55 Broadway. Post-war housing, which frequently appears in their work, relates to Benjamin’s perspective of what emerges from the rubble of history. While a utopian ideal underlined post-war social housing, suburban architecture of this period helped to constrain sex and gender into its purely reproductive form, both biologically and economically. The Art Deco style of the skyscrapers was an architectural style representing luxury, exuberance and faith in technological progress.
Situated between Westminster – where the future is debated – and the Royal Palaces – where the past is preserved – Quinlan and Hastings’s work reflects on recent political change in Britain. Against a backdrop of global conflict and political upheaval, their new artwork occupies a space between past, present and future, their divine angelic figures embodying these multiple perspectives to watch over London.
Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings, artists, said: “St James’s Park is a station predominantly used by commuters working in and around the Westminster area, often in positions of governance or the civil service. We were interested in the function of the figure of the angel in public spaces such as in churches where it operates as a figure of divine intervention who passes judgement.
“In creating an artwork that looks back at the viewer, we wanted to illustrate a figure who is always watching. It is an artwork that considers the relationship between the present and the past. Our angels are inspired by Michelangelo’s five Sibyls in the Sistine Chapel, who have an incredible physical and emotional presence. A Sibyl is a prophetess or oracle in Ancient Greece who prophesied at sacred sites such as Delphi.
“We situated our angelic or prophet figures in landscapes that represent both rural and urban qualities: rolling hills, old weather-beaten trees, disorientating perspectives and wide open grassy plains alongside art deco skyscrapers, post-war council houses and a model of 55 Broadway. By combining them together in our artwork, these familiar landscapes become alienated with buildings taking on a sacred, temple-like significance.”
Eleanor Pinfield, head of art on the Underground, commented: “St James’s Park station and 55 Broadway stands at the heart of London Underground’s commitment to art and design. Since the early 1900s, London Underground has shaped the city by utilising the unexpected perspectives of leading architects and artists of the age. Through Art on the Underground, we ensure that the vision of artists continues to bring enriched spaces to customers today.
“Quinlan and Hastings’s permanent commission at St James’s Park is a stunning addition to the station that reflects on its location, the history of art in public spaces and specifically on the lineage of mosaic works found on London Underground. It embodies the creative power of art in public spaces and will delight our customers for generations to come.”
St James’s Park station is more than 150 years old and is served by the District and Circle lines. It is close to many of the attractions of the West End.
Image credit: GG Archard Courtesy of the artists and Arcadi
