vibrant diversity, MTA easter eggs, and sunglasses from '95 are all on 'the bus' at frieze

this M5-route sculpture of a bus is parked at randall’s island for frieze new york 2019. thanks to the MTA — NYC’s public transit system — there are many routes to get to randall’s from designboom brooklyn and countless colorful characters to meet along the commute. we could take the D or the N or the R to atlantic avenue, then transfer to the manhattan bound 5, take it all the way up to 125th street and walk over the robert f kennedy bridge, or we could take a plethora of busses if the trains aren’t working for some reason — all this to see another bus, an homage to a bus titled, ‘the bus,’ made in 1995 by red grooms.

all images courtesy of the artist and marlborough, new york and london; photos by pierre le hors

‘the bus,’ was made from an assortment of mediums. leather, textiles, foam, wood — it’s a giant collage from ’95 you can walk around, read, sit and stare in. commuters were carved from foam and painted vibrantly. their sharply cut figures and shadings highlight the sweat, wrinkles, style, comfort and discomfort that NYC commuters share on their journey together from point a to point b. it is a life-sized sculpture presented at frieze by london’s marlborough gallery. 

‘the bus’ is just one of red grooms’ pop-art constructions. his other works include a baseball-park installation and a carousel, but ‘the bus’ is of everyone’s attention today at frieze, some 25 years after its initial creation, timely resurfacing, during the age of instagram. interestingly, in those 25 years, not much has changed. there’s still advertisements for miss saigon. there’s still that one person riding who would prefer to stand. the bus driver’s purple shades are one of the only hints that it really is 1995 — that and the fact that no one is staring down at their cell phones.