Art

Charming chess sets on display at St. Louis Lambert Int’l Airport

Art, Exhibits, , , , , ,

Whether you’re a fan of playing chess and collecting chess sets or not, you’ll likely be intrigued by the exhibtion of 16 chess sets and artifacts on loan from the St. Louis-based World Chess Hall of Fame that are now on display at St. Louis Lambert International Airport.

Capturing Imagination: Pop Culture and Chess includes beautifully-sculpted, resin chess pieces including Avengers: Infinity War with characters Thor, Spiderman, Captain America, Iron Man and Black Panther. Other sets feature Hello Kitty characters on a chess board that doubles as a collector’s tin and cast and hand-painted pieces from Winnie the Pooh.

There is also a Star Trek tri-dimensional chess set with precision-cast pieces coated in sterling silver and 24-karat gold and sets that features chess pieces portraying Snoopy, Fred Flintstone, Miss Piggy, Big Bird and Bart Simpson.

Capturing Imagination: Pop Culture and Chess is on display at the Lambert Gallery in the Terminal 1 Bag Claim at St. Louis Lambert International Airport through November 4, 2018.

Fresh airport art to look for on your next trip

Art, , , ,

Here are some of fresh art exhibits to look for at some airports around the country:

Addoley Dzegede’s “Here and Elsewhere,” a 12 ft.-wide silkscreened work of pigment on cloth, is on view at St. Louis Lambert International Airport in Terminal 2 between gates E10 and E12 through the end of October, 2018.

The airport currently has 29 equally intriguing works of art on view throughout the terminals, courtesy of the Lambert Art and Culture Program.

Christian Scott, North Beach Bandshell, Miami Beach, 2016.

A new exhibition at Miami International Airport on view through October, 2018, celebrates the 30th anniversary of The Rhythm Foundation, the award-winning local non-profit organization that showcases international artists in South Florida. Front Row to the World is an exhibition of 15 concert photographs near Gate D31 by Peruvian-born and Miami Beach-based photographer Luis Olazabal. 

Atomic Haystack by Isamu Noguchi. Courtesy SFO Museum

And at San Francisco International Airport, the SFO Museum has two installations exploring the relationship of Isamu Noguchi’s paper and bamboo Akari lanters with his steel and bronze plate sculpture. Look for these pieces pre-security in the SFO International Terminal Main Hall Departures Lobby through January 6, 2019

 

Fresh art at Albany International Airport

Airports, Art,

Kingsley Parker -The Quarry

Albany International is one of those rare airports that has an art curator and a dedicated space for changing group art exhibitions.

Their newest show – Under the Ground, Below the Water –  has just been installed and will be on view through September 3, 2018 in the gallery located pre-security on the 3rd floor of the main terminal.

Here are few more snaps of the show shared by the airport.

 

Tanya Marcuse – Woven1

 

 

(By D.Harris: I went down in the valley And I crossed an Icy stream and the water I was crossing Was no water in a dream)

Mister Rogers at PIT Airport; Aerial dancers at San Diego Int’l

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This week it is impossible to choose just one Airport Amenity of the Week, so we’ll declare a tie.

Pittsburgh International Airport is having a fun event Friday, March 23, to honor Fred Rogers and the Mister Rogers Neighborhood children’s TV show that was produced in Pittsburgh and first aired 50 years ago.

Between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. in PIT’s Airside Center Core, airport employees wearing red cardigans will be offering travelers refreshments and handing out free buttons and red shoelaces. A big chalkboard will be set up, so passengers can share memories of watching the TV show during its 33-year run.

The cardigans, the shoelaces, and the “You’re Special, Too!” slogan printed on the buttons are homages to Rogers, who would always tell viewers how special they were and who started each program by putting on a zip-up cardigan and changing out of his loafers into sneakers.

PIT’s event is timed to coincide with Friday’s release of a Mister Rogers Forever stamp and the airport’s post office on Concourse D will have those new stamps to sell. More details here.

 

(Courtesy SAN Airport, photo by Alan Hess)

The next round of the performing arts residency program at San Diego International Airport kicks off Wednesday, March 28 with an aerial rope performance post security in Terminal 2. The event will feature acrobatics, trapeze work, music and dance.

The performers are from the Astraeus Aerial Dance Theatre and during a six-month airport residency, dancers and acrobats from the troupe will interact with passengers and create, rehearse and perform new content inspired by what happens at the airport.

So next time you’re at SAN – look up!

Arts program at Philadelphia Int’l Airport turns 20

Airports, Art, ,

Christine Larson’s Farewell to Night

The arts and exhibitions program at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and, after 425 temporary exhibits and artist demonstrations, one of the first airport arts programs is still going strong.

Over the years, the exhibits have featured a variety of media including painting, photography, printmaking, wood working, ceramics, glass, and found objects such as a 20-foot clock made of hundreds of empty Yuengling beer bottles

Beer Bottle Clock

The current exhibit in Terminal A-East features a montage of Philadelphia’s 67 Historic Landmarks, recognizing the city’s designation as the nation’s first World Heritage City by the International Organization of World Heritage Cities.

Other exhibits in the terminals today include Christine Larsen’s Farewell to Night, a 100-footlong illustration of an imagined landscape where mystical characters celebrate the coming of morning  and Custom Bikes, which showcases hand-made bicycles from 5 different local bike shops.

 

The Exhibitions Program was founded by PHL Director of Image and Chief Curator Leah Douglas, who was kind enough to answer a couple of questions about the program via email:

What have been some of the challenges and successes of the art program during these 20 years?

“Twenty years ago there were few airport art programs to emulate so it takes time to model a program that works best for your airport, city, and region. Now passengers and employees are familiar with rotating art programs in airports and it something that they look forward to seeing.  The program has evolved into one of the area’s prized locations to exhibit because of the quality of our presentations and the quality and variety of the work that we show–in addition to the massive exposure with 82,000 passengers flying through PHL every day.”

What are some the most memorable exhibitions for you to put together?

“It’s always the next exhibition that I am looking forward to most and in particular, it is one that I am curating for this anniversary–It’s A Wrap: 20 for 20. This exhibition has to be the first-ever for an airport:  Twenty artists are invited to create interventions on existing architectural elements and furnishings. Several artists will crochet over top columns and rockers; 6 artists have been given ceiling tiles to paint on; 1 artist will apply colored tape in patterns along the glass of the moving walkway; and another artist will paint directly on 2 cement columns.”

Find more information about past, present and future exhibitions at Philadelphia International Airport here.