Concourse Curating

Concourse Curating

Courtesy Philadelphia International Airport

Heather Mae Erickson, "Refined Dining" (2007)

Courtesy Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

Detail, Linda Beaumont, "Traveling Light" (2001-2003)

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Colleen McPoland put her foot down the day officials at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport wanted to install an artwork worth several thousand dollars next to a children’s play area. After a decade as the airport’s art program manager, she had seen more than once the damage tiny, sticky hands could inflict. “I said no,” she said. “That’s just asking for trouble.”

Foreseeing problems is just one of the demands curators of airport art have to juggle on a daily basis. And their duties, from tackling logistical concerns to pleasing the public, are becoming increasingly complex as airport art programs grow.

At a time when the art market, and subsequently interest in all types of art, is soaring, travel hubs are expanding both their permanent collections and rotating exhibitions. Sculptures, paintings, installations, multimedia works, and even entire galleries are now regular features in concourses—and not only in large airports, according to a recent report by the Associated Press.

From Boston’s Logan Airport to Asheville Regional Airport in North Carolina, airports of all sizes are developing or revamping their programs. Asheville opened its first art gallery in June, while Boston unveiled Rainbow Cove, an eight-story, $300,000 installation by Christopher Janney, in April. The Nashville International Airport this month unveiled a six-month exhibition of paintings by William Lee Golden, of Oak Ridge Boys fame, titled “The First of Many to Come,” complete with an opening reception featuring the Oak Ridge Boys in concert. Looking west, Seattle-Tacoma’s upgrade and expansion project is integrating a Carolyn Braaksma design into a 1,220-foot-long, 86-foot-tall wall along one runway, and the Denver International Airport is looking to hire an art conservator and increase its holdings, having recently announced a call for submissions for three commissions of site-specific, temporary installations.

“The [airport art] trend is growing,” said Greg Mamary, producer of special projects at the American Association of Airport Executives, adding that a larger number of airports—especially those in smaller and mid-size cities all over the United States—started focusing on their art programs after Sept. 11, 2001. Mamary hypothesized that the growth is part of an effort to help passengers de-stress and pass the longer waiting periods caused by increased security. Many airports have also gotten slices of their cities’ Percent for Art funding programs (laws requiring a certain percentage of the budget for city-funded construction projects to be spent on artwork) over the past several years, he added. In addition, participation in the AAAE’s annual Arts in the Airport workshop—which covers everything from publicizing art programs to lighting exhibits—has grown steadily since its inception seven years ago, Mamary said.

Travelers are catching on as well. High-flying art lovers have created a public group on the online photo-sharing site Flickr, where members have posted more than 270 images of their favorite airport art, from Copenhagen to San Francisco.

The media has picked up on the trend too, covering everything from art’s role in boosting airports’ images to frequent flyers gushing over how exhibits enhance the travel experience. What is more seldom mentioned, however, is the formidable task curators face behind the scenes. “It’s very challenging to run an art program in an airport,” said Colleen Fanning, art program manager at the Denver airport, “especially because we never close.”

Contending with Crowds
Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport currently holds the title of world’s busiest airport, with upward of 78 million passengers traversing its terminals in 2006. To put that in context, major art museums such as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Paris’s Centre Pompidou get about five and seven million visitors, respectively, each year.

Naturally, the bigger the crowd, the bigger the conservation concerns—especially when the venue happens to be a major thoroughfare for travel. Not only are hordes of people maneuvering around the artworks, but unlike in a museum, many people in airports are lugging bulky suitcases, herding children, pushing precariously loaded carts, or rushing to catch a connecting flight, increasing the likelihood of accidental damage to the works. “Maintenance is a big issue,” Fanning said. “Our murals used to take a little bit of abuse.”