Simon Patterson (b. 1967)

This print replicates the iconic map of the London Underground created by Henry C. Beck in 1931. But the station names have been replaced by names of philosophers, Italian artists, musicians, film starts and other names of well known people from different fields of activity.

Simon Patterson conceives the underground map as 'an abstraction of the urban landscape...the tube stops...can be seen as stars in a constellation, where you imagine the lines to connect the dots'(Quoted in Greenberg, 'The Word According to Simon Patterson, Tate: The Art Magazine, issue 4, winter 1994, p.47). In that respect, the work's title refers to the astronomical constellation of the same name.