Life Underground by Tom Otterness

Life Underground by Tom Otterness is an installation piece in which there are bronze figurines planted in different parts of the 14 street (A, C, E, L) subway station. The figurines, which consist of cartoon like creatures and animals; some with money bags on their heads and some with worker overalls. These figurines, though they epitomize the cutest things you would ever see in a subway station, are indeed telling another story; a story that we all can relate to, which is the life as a worker in New York City. The installation is inspired by the Tammany Hall era where the essence of corruption was prevalent. All around the station there are tableau's where we see a worker being watched by the rich. There are others in which we see the greed of the rich; for example, there is one tableau where there is a figurine that represents a rich person picking up coins and attempting to fit them all in its pocket. One of the figurines that was most appealing was one in which a crocodile wearing a suit is poking its head out of a sewer and he’s pulling one of the rich figurines in with him, and then you have another rich figurine standing next to the sewer watching his companion get swallowed by the crocodile, which reminded me of that image where St. Michael is slaying the devil with his sword.

In class we have discussed that the image of Michael slaying the devil shows that there is a sense of good prevailing evil, however, it doesn't mean that evil has seized to exist. In the figurine tableau, evil continues to exist even though the crocodile is prevailing the evil that is oppressing the workers. If you look closely at the image, you notice that the crocodile is also wearing a suit, which indicates that the rich man is being taken to a place in which he now feels like he’s as low as the worker.

The figurines also reminded me of a quote from the play Agamemnon, “We must suffer, suffer into truth.” It seems like all of these figurines are all suffering; whether they are rich or poor, there is suffering behind their cuteness. The workers are always being watched by the rich, and the rich are constantly trying to avoid being swallowed by their competitors.