Airport authority Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) has commissioned seven video artists to create short-form video artworks for the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) automated people mover (APM) electric train system in California.
Artists Garrett Bradley, Alfredo Jaar, Kirsten Johnson, Alex Prager, Diana Thater, Clarissa Tossin and Billy Woodberry will have their works presented on large-scale digital screens located at three of the six APM stations. The artists were selected by an art committee LAWA convened as part of its Landside Access Modernization Program (LAMP), a US$5.5bn project to create a ground transportation network designed to improve traffic conditions in and around LAX. The LAMP Art Committee included: Michael Govan, museum director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Joanne Heyler, founding director of The Broad; Ravi Rajan, president of the California Institute of the Arts; and representatives from the Office of the Mayor, LAWA and the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
The APM broke ground in March 2019 and is scheduled to open for passenger service in 2024. The train system will run on a 2.25-mile elevated guideway with six stations, three of which are located inside the Central Terminal Area (CTA) and three outside. The video artworks will premiere at the stations located at the Consolidated Rent-a-Car Facility (ConRAC), the Intermodal Transportation Facility-East (ITF-East) and the West Central Terminal Area Station. The ConRAC and ITF-East stations are outside of the CTA and will serve passengers renting cars and passengers connecting from the Airport Metro Connector and ground transportation lines. The West Central Terminal Area Station is located within the CTA and will serve passengers arriving and departing from the Tom Bradley International Terminal.
The video artworks are funded by LAWA through the City of Los Angeles’s Public Percent for Art Program, which is administered by the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs. This program dedicates 1% of the construction cost of the city’s capital improvement projects to contribute to enduring, contemporary art experiences at the city’s public facilities.
Justin Erbacci, CEO of LAWA, said, “LAX is building world-class facilities that will transform the passenger experience with innovative public art experiences that reflect the identity and diversity of our city and advance Los Angeles’s reputation as the cultural capital of the world. These video artworks will create a stunning visual environment for the 30 million passengers per year expected to utilize the APM system.”
