Artist Theo Morrow’s work decorates the temporarily closed entrance to the L’Enfant Plaza metro station. Courtesy of the Author.
By Southwester Staff
The L’Enfant Plaza metro station’s entrance at Maryland Avenue and 7th Street SW is currently the site of an art display. After hearing that the entrance was going to be closed for repairs, SWBID reached out to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to see how they could bring some life and color to the site, according to SWBID’s Director of Public Space, Jessie Himmelrich.
WMATA had already worked with the local artist who was eventually chosen for the L’Enfant site, Theo Morrow, for its Art in Transit Program. SWBID previously worked with WMATA on the Hirshhorn’s Yayoi Kusama display at the same station in 2017.
In an Instagram post, Morrow describes the installation as an “artful construction barricade cover” that up close references “the iconic Washington Metro architecture, while from afar…reads as a more natural texture.”
In front of the station’s barricades stands one of the numerous traffic box art wraps. Morrow writes on his website that this “Brute Box” is a “public art installation comprised of colorful architectural collages which reimagine the brutalist icons of Southwest Washington D.C.”
The installation is expected to remain up as long as the station is under construction.
Undamaged panels will then be repurposed, Himmelrich told The Southwester. There are already 13 traffic box art wraps in Southwest, and SWBID hopes to add more.