Art in airports

SFO layover? See Art of African Instruments

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If you’re arriving, departing or making a connection at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), be sure to leave some time to explore some of the museum-quality exhibits offered by the SFO Museum.

The newest exhibition comes to SFO Airport courtesy of the Fowler Museum at UCLA. It features bells, rattles, harp lutes, drums, slit gongs, and lamellophones or “thumb pianos” from the West and Central African countries of Liberia, Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Here’s a bit about the exhibit from the museum:

Africa’s rich cultural heritage encompasses a tremendous range of music, musical instruments, and performing arts. The variety of instruments made and used in Africa ranges from drums, xylophones, and zithers, to electric guitars and keyboards. Many traditional musical instruments appear utilitarian, while others are embellished with geometric, anthropomorphic, and zoomorphic features, allowing them to simultaneously serve as works of art.

Take a look at a few images from the exhibit below and see the rest of the instruments in SFO’s Harvey Milk Terminal 1 through April 13, 2025.

(Images courtesy SFO Museum)

Fresh art at John Wayne Airport (SNA)

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(Interconexión, Abby Aceves)

The newest art exhibition at John Wayne Airport (SNA) in Orange County, CA titled “Symbology” includes the work of six Southern California-based Latinx artists: Abby Aceves, John Flores, Dani Garcia, Amanda Kazemi, Ivan Virgen, and Jaime Zacarias (aka Germs).  

The artists use pattern, color, iconography, and metaphor to delve into tradition presented via surrealist paintings, hyperrealistic drawings, and intricately crafted ceramic sculptures.

Look for this exhibition through July 22, 2024, post-security in the Terminal A Vi Smith Gallery, between Gates 1 and 4 and in the sculpture gallery in Terminal B.

Here are a few more images from the exhibition.

Seed Pod (new places, new faces) by John Flores

Ancestral Knowledge, Amanda Kazemi.

Fresh art + lots of music at Nashville Int’l Airport

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Not for nothing is Nashville, Tennessee known as Music City.

And the tunes start right at Nashville International Airport (BNA). There, live performances featuring all manner of musical styles, from traditional and contemporary country to rhythm and blues, jazz, pop, gospel, and bluegrass are presented on stages located near the A/B Waiting Lounge, the C/D Waiting Lounge, and in the Concourse C Food Court (beyond security).

If you’re headed that way, check out the BNA events calendar filled with live performances. And be sure to take a moment to listen up when you land.

(Photo above: Singer-songwriter Joe West, dubbed the “house band” for Nashville International Airport)

Fresh Art at Nashville International Airport

(Artist: DeShawn Lewis)

While you’re at Nashville International Airport, look for the art as well.

The Spring/Summer installment of the Flying Solo series at Nashville International Airport is on view through June 23, 2024, showcasing the works of talented Nashville artists including Daniel Arite, Sarah Clinton, Joel Keas, DaShawn Lewis, Josh MacLeod, Vanessa Sharp Multon, Tammy O’Connor, and Mary Ruden.

Here’s a preview of what you’ll see:

(Artist: Joel Keas)

(Artist Daniel Arite)

(Artist: Sara Clinton)

(Artist: Joshua MacLeod)

New SFO Museum exhibit features Chinese ceramics

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If you’re heading to or through San Francisco International Airport (SFO) anytime soon, be sure to look for some of the permanent and temporary exhibits offered throughout the terminals by the SFO Museum.

One of the newest, titled Everyday Elegance in Chinese Ceramics, features an assortment of functional wares from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries representing various regions in China.

The exhibit includes oil lamps in the shape of animals, colorful hat stands, lively guardian lions or “foo dogs,” blue-and-white porcelain, rustic food storage jars, and more.

According to the exhibition notes:

Everyday objects are frequently embellished with a host of auspicious symbols to increase the likelihood of wish fulfillment. Rebuses or pictorial puns found on ceramics convey a variety of desires, from a harmonious marriage to the securing of rank, wealth, and longevity. Decorative motifs often take the form of flowers, birds, animals, children, or geometric designs. 

Looke for Everyday Elegance in Chinese Ceramics, in the pre-security area of the International Departures Hall (Gallery 4D) at San Francisco International Airport through mid-August.

All images courtesy of SFO Museum

At PHL Airport: a collection of collections

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The exhibition program at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) is offering an exhibition featuring a wonderful collection of collections.

Personal Collection – Private Obsessions features an assortment of private collections that are borrowed from residents of the Greater Philadelphia area and from employees at Philadelphia International Airport.

Passengers traveling through PHL between now and May 2024 will see some collections representing nostalgic objects, such as handbags, sewing thimbles, antique glass, airline silverware, and John F. Kennedy ephemera.

Other collections feature more familiar objects from popular culture—ice cream scoops, bobbleheads, bottle caps, Funko Pop! figures, travel magnets, and Philadelphia Eagles hats.

The exhibit notes point out that while the activity of collecting is a universal experience, each collection is as personal and unique as each object and often represents a specific remembrance or story.

“This is the 4th exhibition of collections that we have presented over the past 25 years of the exhibitions program,” said Leah Douglas, PHL’s Director of Guest Experience. “The current installation is by far the most extensive one to date and it is proving to be a big hit with our guests and employees,” she said.

Personal Collections – Private Obsessions is on view at Philadelphia International Airport through May 2024 and is located between Terminals C and D accessible to ticketed passengers.

What do you collect?

It seems everyone collects something. Or many things. Please share a note about your collections in the comments section below.

Queen Charlotte returns to Charlotte Douglas Int’l AIrport

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Charlotte Douglas Int’l Airport welcomes back Queen Charlotte

Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) is hard at work on Destination CLT, the airport’s $4 billion capital investment program.

And the Terminal Lobby Expansion (TLE) is a $608 million piece of that project.

The west side of the TLE opened in July, 2022. And now the east side of that section is set to open at the end of October.

This section delivers about 90,000 square feet of new space, access to the east subterranean walkway, and TSA’s Checkpoint 1, with eight screening lanes. .

Travelers through this new east side lobby area will also find large windows, terrazo flooring, bright blue tile frames for the entrances and exits, and new sculptures and murals.

Pasengers will also see an old friend.

While construction has been underway, the airport’s statue of Queen Charlotte was moved out the way and then taken offsite for a restoration and a repatina.

Now she’s back.

Last week, airport officials unveiled the refreshed 3,000-pound, 15-foot-tall bronze sculpture of Queen Charlotte, back on top of a 30-foot tall base.

The Queen Charlotte statue is now in the center of the Queen’s Court, the name for the Terminal Lobby Expansion space. Queen’s Court is also home to Queen Charlotte’s Kitchen. This is CLT’s first pre-security sit-down dining option, offering breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as wine, beer and cocktails.

How did the Queen Charlotte get to CLT?

In the late 1980’s a local group put up $250,000 to commission an airport sculpture to symbolize the city and greet CLT passengers.

Washington, D.C., artist Raymond Kaskey won the commission and his statue of Queen Charlotte was dedicated on Sept. 18, 1990.

For many years the statue stood on a fountain in an outdoor plaza between CLT’s hourly parkng decks. She’s been been moved around and taken off site for several years to accomodate airport construction.

Here’s a video of Raymond Kaskey talking about the getting the initial commission for the project and creating the sculpture.

(All photos courtesy CLT)

Travel Tidbits from an airport near you

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New artwork to greet passengers at Salt Lake City Int’l Airport

Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) already has several large-scale artworks by artist Gordon Huether, including the 400-foot Canyon (above).

Coming soon: the completion of his 90-foot outdoor art piece echoing the mountain peaks for which Utah is famous.

SFO Airport is celebrating Dia de Los Muertos

San Fransisco International Airport (SFO) is celebrating Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) with an altar, a mural, and live cultural performances through November 7 in Harvey Milk Terminal 1 and Terminal 2.

In Harvey Milk Terminal 1, look for the “Tree of Life” altar created in partnership with the Mission Center for Cultural Arts, and feel free to add the names of your loved ones to the altar.

In Terminal 2, artist Adrian Arias will paint a mural titled “Ancestral Hummingbird with Moon,” influenced by his Peruvian background.

Pittsburgh International Airport’s new terminal progressing nicely

Aliens at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport?

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A new exhibition from the Phoenix Airport Museum at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) is inspired by a potato-shaped, metal-rich asteroid named Psyche that sits between Mars and Jupiter.

On October 12, 2023, NASA plans to launch a spacecraft of the same name on a mission to Psyche.

The Psyche spacecraft should arrive at the Psyche asteroid sometime in 2029 and then orbit it for at least 26 months.

Courtesy NASA

Through early 2024, the Phoenix Airport Museum is presenting an exhibition inspired by the Psyche mission.

Psyche: Mission to a Metal World, presents a diverse range of artwork by students involved in Arizona State University’s Psyche-Inspired internship program.

Each year, the program accepts 16 undergraduate students from any university in the U.S. And through creative works, the students interpret the mission’s data, predict outcomes, and even develop science-fiction-based scenarios.

This new exhibit includes paintings, sculptures, animations, and more from the Psyche Inspired program.

Highlights include an animated, stop-motion “interview” with the Psyche satellite, a 6-foot-tall personified “asteroid robot” and vivid illustrations anticipating the asteroid’s surface. Visitors can also learn fun facts about Psyche and the NASA mission to visit it.

Look for this out-of-this-world exhibition, on display at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in Terminal 3, level 2 near the security checkpoint through early 2024.

Exhibit images courtesy Phoenix Airport Museum

Stuck at the Airport: Art at Albany Int’l Airport

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(Artist: Sharon Bates)

Art – and a smartly curated art program – can turn a long wait at an airport into a rewarding cultural adventure.

And the team at New York’s Albany International Airport (ALB) caught onto that fact early on.

The airport created an Art & Culture Program back in 1998 when only a handful of other airports were presenting artwork.

And now, 25 years later, travelers at Albany International Airport can rely on being able to spend time in the airport enjoying permanent art installations, great temporary exhibitions, and exhibit cases showcasing treasures from area museums and cultural organizations.

(Adirondack Folk School exhibit cases at ALB)

The Stuck at the Airport art review team is looking forward to seeing the current exhibition in ALB’s Concourse A, titled Souvenir, in part because it features work by Sharon Bates, the founding director of Albany International Airport’s Art & Culture Program.

The Souvenir exhibit features artwork submitted to the participatory magazine, Cut Me Up, and Bates’ contribution was a series of miniature versions of some of her most memorable installations at ALB.

We hope she has made some extras, so we can take home some souvenirs.

Travel tidbits from here and there

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File under: Hotels we hope to visit

A bourbon-themed hotel? Yes.

File under: How we wish we could fly

We’re looking at the moon

Heading to Las Vegas? Visit this airport museum

Learn the real story behind Denver Airport’s Mustang