NEW PUBLIC ART PROJECT DESTINED FOR LAX

A new public art project involving video creations by seventeen artists and art teams is currently being unveiled at Los Angeles International Airport, reports David Ng for the Los Angeles Times. Organizers said the completed project will be on display in two permanent locations in the arrivals lobby at the airport’s Tom Bradley International Terminal. Some of the video art is already on display, but a complete unveiling isn’t scheduled until the summer.

Artists were asked to create site-specific works that would appear on video screens mounted on a wall or suspended from a ceiling. The video wall at LAX will consist of twenty-five forty-six-inch LCD screens in a rectangular matrix, while the ceiling arrangement will feature fifty-eight screens placed end to end.

The project is organized by the Department of Cultural Affairs and LAX. Artists participating in the project come from cities across the country, including LA, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. For the project, artists were asked to “address the context of LAX and the city of Los Angeles and create an impressive moving visual art environment.” The Los Angeles–based artists include Todd Gray, Joseph Santarromana, Hilja Keading, Ryan Lamb, Steve Shoffner, and Pascual Sisto.

The cost of the video installations comes to $250,000, according to Sarah Cifarelli, LAX’s art manager. The money is coming from a city rule requiring city departments and private developers to contribute 1 percent of construction costs of capital improvement to public art.