MTA Arts & Design

Woodhaven Boulevard

Pablo Tauler

In Memory of the Lost Battalion, 1996

Stainless steel and faceted glass column covers on mezzanine

This work includes nine station support beams that are sheathed in iron, stainless steel, and inch-thick architectural glass that seem to stand watch over passing travelers. The sculpture respects the physical constraints of the station architecture and succeeds in reshaping them through the use of light and materials to construct a powerful memorial to the Lost Battalion - a group of World War I soldiers, mostly New Yorkers, who were lost in battle. Pablo Tauler uses materials that eerily suggests the Argonne Forest where the soldiers met their fate. Muscular steel slabs evoke armaments glass refracts light, and organically shaped iron forms twist like branches. For the sculptor the ironwork inspires memories of the wilderness marshes near his childhood home. "I am profoundly aware of the importance of the environment to my art," he says. "Especially interesting to me is the manipulation of light through the use of texture and reflective materials."