katharina grosse colorizes railway landscape for train riders

katharina grosse colorizes railway landscape for train riders
all photos by steve weinik for the city of philadelphia mural arts program

berlin-based artist katharina grosse is transforming the landscape one of philadelphia’s major transportation routes with a series of seven, vibrantly-colored installations along the city’s rail gateway, visible primarily to passengers aboard passing trains. ‘psychylustro’ utilizes grosse’s unique spray-paint technique to spread intense color across the chosen project sites, unfolding throughout the dynamic course and covering abandoned warehouse walls, small buildings and stretches of green spaces in bold hues. framed through the windows of the moving train, the large-scale public artwork generates a real-time landscape painting that explores shifting scale, perspective and the passage of time.

a passenger aboard the train passes by the pink colored installation outdoors

grosse explains that her work ‘shifts your notion of size through movement, so when you stand in front of it, it’s huge, but when you pass it by on the train it becomes small. this kind of experience — that your life is constantly in that kind of changing mode — is something I’ve always been fascinated by. and this time we have an extra tool, which is the train. in a museum you walk, and that’s the way you move. here, you can fly.’

grosse’s team paint the landscape pink

presented by the city of philadelphia mural arts program, the ephemeral and constantly changing installation will transform over time and — with nearly 34,000 daily viewers on the railway — will be a portal for new audiences to experience contemporary art, transforming a routine train journey into a voyage of the imagination. ‘we really want people to see what we see,’ describes jane golden, mural arts executive director. ‘we see the deterioration, but we also see the beauty, we see the history, we see philadelphia’s past.’ mural arts has now released a map of the project sites, available here.

painting site 3 (drama wall) with benjamin moore acrylic indoor paint

site 5 (trestle)

the artist at the drama wall

site 6 (warehouse)

warehouse painted in white and orange

vibrant hues wash the side of the building

the landscape is transformed by the bold use of color

the railway line site is painted in orange

site 7 (twin walls)

bright green details of site 7

‘twin walls’ covers the abandoned site in lime green