A Response to Nick Cave’s “Soundsuits” Subway Station Mosaic

William Sotiriou

There is a chaotic drive as people swarm out of the subway into the Times Square 42nd street station. I have nowhere to be as I walk through the underground tunnels, yet the contagious momentum of the bodies surrounding me makes me feel frantic. I start to walk faster.

As I hear the sound of an electric guitar echoing through the halls, I catch my first glimpse of the mosaic. The waves of color feel alien to the white walls and black columns that surround it. I exit the rapid stream of people heading to the approaching train, and I immediately feel out of place stopping to observe the wall. Colorfully-embellished human-like figures made of small glass tiles stand in a line, with stripes of blue and green tile radiating around each one.

I am drawn to one figure in particular: a threatening elliptical swirl of sharp red, black, and white tiles covering a human figure, whose lower torso and legs show out from underneath. At first I am intimidated by the swirl, and I wonder whose identity it is covering. I imagine it to represent the cloud of stress and anxiety that surrounds us in everyday life. However, the longer I stand there my eyes are drawn closer into the details of the swirl, and I begin to notice hints of purple, then green— I find beauty in the threatening chaos of the swirl. I then look closer at what is shown of the body and notice that it consists of white and gray buttons, covering all but a few brown fingertips which extend down from the sleeves. I realize then that the swirl is not covering the person’s identity, but represents the erotic within them, bursting out from the constraints of the mundane buttons. It is this same erotic nature that exists in all humans which, in the words of Audre Lorde, “when released from its intense and constrained pellet, flows through and colors my life with a kind of energy that heightens and sensitizes and strengthens all my experience” (Lorde 90). It is a chaotic creative energy within each of us that defines us and our identities.

The stream of bodies continues to run rapidly behind me, and I wonder why I am alone in observing the mosaic. The average person walking through the subway station has no time to stop and appreciate the art. Everyone has somewhere to be at a specific time to fulfill their everyday duties to survive, all of which exist separated from art and creativity. Lorde warns us of the repercussions of this separation, stating that “the ascetic position is one of the highest fear, the gravest immobility” (Lorde 89). In creating this mosaic in the middle of a busy subway station, the artist is attempting to intersect these two separated worlds by incorporating the erotic into our everyday lives. It is a rebellion against a society that values profit over human need, enticing us to disrupt the automatic flow in which we all live. The artist is sharing joy with everyone who passes by which, according to Lorde, “forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference” (Lorde 89). This communication of joy through art, even in the most mundane and functional of settings, is essential for building empathy throughout a community.

In taking the initiative to separate from the stream by one’s own pleasure-driven instincts, the observer has brought attention to their “erotic knowledge”. When we allow ourselves to understand our capacity for joy, according to Lorde, “we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society” (Lorde 90). This mosaic empowers us by giving us the courage to accept nothing other than joy in our lives. The figure serves as a mirror for the observer, whose swirl has just been freed.

Works Cited

Lorde, Audre. “The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” Sister Outsider, The Crossing Press, Berkeley, CA, 1984.

Copyright © 2023 William Sotiriou