Airport art

Guitars at Phoenix Sky Harbor Intl Airport

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A cool new exhibit about guitars is underway at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)

Phoenix is home to the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery and right now passengers traveling through Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport are being treated to an exhibit featuring nine hand-crafted guitars, including both acoustic and electric style.

Exhibition highlights include Scott Walker’s hand-painted “patina” guitar (above), which has wood body that resembles oxidized metal. Also on display: an unusual 26-string harp-guitar by William Eaton and an electric mandolin by Joe Vallee, whose instruments are collected by prominent musicians like Steve Miller.

Visitors to the PHX Airport Museum exhibit will also find displays of the guitar-making process. Parts of a guitar are presented in an exploded view showing how a guitar is constructed. And the various stages of shaping the wood components of a guitar are explained.

Exploded view of an acoustic guitar, courtesy of the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery

Phoenix Airport Museum’s exhibition, Shaping Sound: The Art of Guitar Making, is on view in two display cases at Terminal 4, level 2 near ticketing through May 2020. 

The 30-year old Phoenix Airport Museum has more than 900 pieces in its collection. The museum presents exhibits featuring both items from the collection and from area artists in several galleries throughout the airport.

Fresh art at LAX

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There are four new art exhibitions at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) Terminal 1. Three are the work of solo artists; one is a one group exhibition. 

Here’s a preview:

“Floragalora” by Pat Warner, and “Rhizomatic Variations”, by Marianne Sadowski, are in Terminal 1 near Gate 9.

“Floragalora” by Pat Warner.

Warner’s inspiration for this installation is the spectacular wildflower superbloom Los Angeles experienced this spring.

Rhizomatic Variations” by Marianne Sadowski. “Variation 4, 5, 7, 8” 2019.

“Rhizomatic Variations” by Marianne Sadowski features a series of 21 polymer plate variations and is “an homage to the simultaneous harmony and disorder which exists in the current landscape of Los Angeles.”


Hanaguruma” by Michiko Yao (top photo) and  “Passing Rose” by Michiko Yao (bottom photo). 

Michiko Yao’s “Hanaguruma”and “Passing Rose“ explore Asian and American stereotypes using symbolic materials. Both pieces make use of digitally manipulated imagery of artificial flowers and are on view to the public in Baggage Claim on the Arrivals Level.

Latitude 33° 56′” exhibit, curated by Bia Gayotto. Left to right: Fran Siegel, “Overland 17” 2014; Flora Kao “City of Angels” 2010; Peter Bo Rappmund “Topophilia” 2015; Stephen Berens “Battle of Chickamauga, September 19-20, 1863, Catoosa County and Walker County, Georgia and Love In, March 26, 1967, Elysian Fields, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California” 2018.

And “Latitude 33° 56′”, by Gate 10, is a curated project with eight artists exploring mapping to translate an experience of a place.

The title refers to LAX’s latitude in degrees, minutes and seconds, and plays with notions of location and territorial representation.

The new exhibitions are presented in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

(All photos by Panic Studio LA, courtesy of Los Angeles World Airports and City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.)

Fresh art at Los Angeles International Airport

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Heading to or through the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT) or Terminal 6 at LAX?

Here’s some info about two now site-specific art installations to look for at Los Angeles International Airport, courtesy of the airport’s partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA),

“Forest, For the Trees” curated by Julie Kornblum

“Forest, For the Trees” is an installation featuring knitted, crocheted, woven and other fiber-based artworks made by more than 40 artists.

“This installation hopes to address the wonders and perils of the forest by creating an environment that is at once unique and fantastic,” said Los Angeles-based artist and project curator Julie Kornblum.

The installation is the newest iteration of Kornblum’s ongoing partnership with the Arroyo Arts Collective and Yarn Bombing Los Angeles. Artists independently created works in their own individual styles and techniques, from realistic woodland creatures made of felt, to stylized tree trunks and branches sprouting from used sweaters. 

Look for “Forest, For the Trees” at LAX in the Tom Bradley International Terminal, Customs Hallway, on the Arrivals Level through January 2020.  

The Unemployed” by Jody Zellen

“The Unemployed” is a site-specific installation by Jody Zellen that features a large-scale, interactive digital projection and four video monitors.

Using data culled from online sources that list unemployment rates for over 200 countries, Zellen depicts this numerical information as animated figures, creating an alternative way to visualize these statistics. 

Zellen created a software program that randomly cycles through the unemployment data of the different countries and, for each country, depicts an array of figures made of simple lines moving within a grid on the wall.

The piece is interactive: as passersby move through the space, their silhouettes are projected onto the wall and transformed into a presence consisting of the ambling figures.  

The installation is open to the public in Terminal 6 on the Departures Level through September 2019 and is also available via a free app.

All photos in this post by Panic Studio LA, courtesy of Los Angeles World Airports and City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

Travel Tidbits from an airport near you

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Hope you had a restful holiday weekend. Here are some travel tidbits from airports you may be visiting soon. Or may want to.

First: check out this nice assortment of souvenir snow globes I spotted over the weekend at the Budapest Airport. Quality-wise, these are nicer than the snow globes we come across in many airports, and these had a nice assortment of local buildings to boot!

Will you be passing through St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) before November, 2019?

Courtesy STL Airport

If so, be sure to look for the exhibit sent over by the Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) that highlights the special connection between plants and people through history. Plants and People: The Collections of the Missouri Botanical Garden is on display through November 10, 2019 in the Lambert Gallery near the C Concourse exit in Terminal 1 .

Here are some more snaps from the exhibit:

Courtesy STL Airport
Courtesy STL Airport

And, at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), the SFO Museum has a new exhibition all about… Victorian pedestals.

Sounds like an odd topic, but we trust the SFO Museum to bring us exhibits that not only look intriguing but teach us something as well.

Here’s the pitch on the pedestals:

“Victorian pedestals, meant to showcase sculpture, are fascinating decorative art objects to behold. The most ornate pedestals were made in the United States during the Gilded Age—a time following the Civil War until the turn of the twentieth century, when the country experienced rapid economic growth. From the mid-1860s through the 1880s, in particular, collecting and displaying sculpture led to an increased demand for pedestals. Wealthy Victorians preferred elaborate furniture on a grand scale and richly ornamented rooms. Several pedestals displaying artistic objects might adorn the drawing room or parlor. Victorians selected pedestals that suited their tastes and living interiors. Pedestals, as a result, offer an intriguing look at the design styles popular at the time.“

Courtesy SFO Museum

The Style of Display: Victorian Pedestals is located pre-security in the International Terminal Main Hall Departures Lobby at San Francisco International Airport through January 12, 2020.

Art museum inside an airport lounge

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Corutesy Turkish Airlines

Here at StuckatTheAirport.com, we’re big fans of art in airports.

And art in airline lounges is a nice bonus for those who have access.

A new addition to the list of airline lounges with great art is the Turkish Airlines Lounge at the new Instanbul Airport.

Turkish Airlines is working with the Instanbul Museum of Modern Art to display artwork from the museum’s collection in the Turkish Airlines Busines Class Lounge at Instanbul Airport.

Turkish Airlines says the 1,400 square-foot exhibition titled, “A Selection from the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art Collection” will change three times each year at year and include artworks ranging from the early 20th century landscape painting tradition to the abstract paintings of artists looking for a synthesis between eastern and western arts during the 1950s.

If you take a moment – and have access – you’ll find great artwork in airline lounges elswhere. Some of my favorite pieces are in the Delta Air Lines Sky Club at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

This work, by Rebecca Coles, not only look great, if you look closely you’ll see that it is made entirely of recycle postage stamps.

Spotted some great art in an airline lounge? Tell us about in the comments section below.