This must be what they mean when they say ‘Hoosier Hospitality.’
The 2024 NBA All-Star game will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana on February 18.
To promote the exhibition game and to make fans feel welcome, Indianapolis International Airport (IND) has turned its central terminal area, called the Civic Plaza, into a full-length basketball court, complete with stanchions, glass backboards, and a painted ‘hardwood’ floor.
The only thing missing? The basketballs.
No dribbling, dunking, or basketball playing is allowed.
a full-length basketball court has been installed in the middle of Indianapolis International Airport to welcome fans to next month's #NBAAllStar2024 🤩
The work is made up of three paintings – Air, Water, and Earth – and can be found pre-security, at the entrance to the airport’s Civic Plaza.
Visitors to IND airport may recognize Faust’s style: one of his previous installations – Chrysalis – was a site-specific work that was removed from the terminal in 2011 to make way for a video wall that displays advertising, public messages and video art. You can read about that episode here.
Chrysalis, by James Wille Faust, 2008. Before it was removed from IND airport. (photo courtesy of the artist)
When it opened in 2008, the new passenger terminal at Indianapolis International Airport (IND) made news for the $4 million worth of impressive, permanent public art that had been commissioned for the building from 17 artists and six poets.
But a few years later we learned that IND airport officials had a funny definition of permanent: in November 2011, a large site-specific work called Chrysalis (above) by Indianapolis artist James Wille Faust was removed from its prominent spot over the main escalators. The popular artwork was replaced with a video wall that was to feature video-based artworks and commercial advertising.
The Indianapolis mayor, local and national artists and arts organizations and, of course, Faust himself fought to keep the artwork in place.
But they lost.
Chrysalis was put in storage and the advertisement on the replacement video screen generates more then $100,000 a year in operating funds for the airport.
Now there’s a new chapter to the story.
In a recently announced agreement between the airport authority and James Wille Faust, the Indianapolis International Airport has commissioned new work from the artist: an installation that will be made of three acrylic-on-canvas paintings, each 5 feet by 6 feet.
The works will be displayed in front of a limestone façade at the entrance to the airport’s pre-security Civic Plaza.
“I am honored that the Indianapolis Airport Authority chose to allow me this pristine wall, uninterrupted by advertising, for my triptych WINGS IN FLIGHT,” said Faust.
