Finding Optimism on Your MetroCard

Photo by Joe Schumacher

The latest public art project to glean some attention can fit right in your pocket... but it's gonna cost ya. The NY Times reports that seven million MetroCards were distributed starting in September, all containing the word "optimism" on the back. The MTA, perhaps seeing it as a way to brainwash unhappy customers, oversaw the project.

Did the cards help create Stepford Straphangers, totally okay with fare hikes and delays? No. But the MTA's Christopher Boylan, says: “God knows people want to feel good, they want to feel up, they want to feel positive. If I can make a couple of customers smile a day, that’s nice.”

The artist, Reed Seifer, says, “I like that maybe not everyone’s going to see it. Or maybe one day you just look and say, ‘Oh.’ It exists between the card and the person who receives the card." What word would you put on the back of a MetroCard?

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Carlson in Arts & Entertainment on November 20, 2009 4:06 PM

Comments [rss]

wow 14th street

Yes, Artist today in the computer age ain't meaning

much anymore , Charles Sheeler used words like this

in the 1930's most of this stuff was done in the Bauhaus.

Art is in the beholders mind

if not in the subway riders pocket or purse.

My word would be "Nothing"

As Samauel Beckett wrote,"Nothing is more than nothing".

The Fugs in the 1960's wrote a song still on recording

about the word Nothing.

This person writing is nothing.

NannyState

It's always Nothing with you...

NannyState

"you again"

Blue387

Couldn't they spring for an exclamation point?

"optimism!"

jaycjay

No, it wouldn't be art that way.

▄█▀ █▬█ █ ▀█▀

My namesake for sure.

youngpro

ARTIST? Really? God, this is why the MTA is bankrupt- paying these losers for 'art'...

jaycjay

"The artist"

Really?

My current Metrocard has a George Elliot quote from Middlemarch on the back. Completely blows away this so-creative concept of "a single word on a white background" as art.

So why doesn't Elliot get props in the NY Times?