Three new – hard to miss – public art pieces are fully installed in the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT) at Los Angeles International Airport.
Bell Tower, above, by Mark Bradford, is on the mezzanine level of the terminal’s Departures Hall, and is suspended from a skylight above the TSA security screening area.
The artist says he modeled the sculpture – 712 panels made from salvaged plywood and posters found on construction sites around town – on medieval bell towers, which served as both a civic gathering spot and sites of surveillance.
In the north light well of the TBIT Great Hall, look for Air Garden, by the Ball-Nogues Studio. A “sinuous, dynamic cloud of color,” the sculpture looks like a giant beaded curtain that seems to take on different shapes depending on the light and viewer’s perspective.
The third public art piece is Pae White’s, ΣLAX, which is suspended above the terminal’s north and south “sterile corridors” leading international passengers to customs.
The work is made of 23.86 miles of custom-dyed cordage in three distinct color palettes that pay homage to the colored-tiled mosaics by Charles D. Kratka, that are in Terminals 3, 4, and 6. Among the sculpture’s 7,484 gold brackets – are eleven (have fun guessing) that are actually made of 14K gold.
(Photos courtesy PanicStudio L.A.)