Artwork Proposals Unveiled for New Indianapolis
Airport Parking Garage, Transportation Center

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indianapolis Airport Authority Tuesday announced it will consider five new public artwork proposals for the parking garage and Ground Transportation Center at the New Indianapolis Airport.

The proposals are being considered for placement in the new terminal’s parking garage and adjacent Ground Transportation Center, which will handle airport charter buses, rental cars and limousines. The new artwork proposals will be in addition to the major public art pieces announced in January for the new airport passenger terminal, now under construction.

“Incorporating artwork into every component of the New Indianapolis Airport helps convey the importance of art to our community, our city and our state,” said Indianapolis Airport Authority Project Director John J. Kish. “Public artwork reflects our culture and heritage and is crucial to creating an attractive, efficient and aesthetically pleasing airport.”

The five artists proposing the artworks for the parking garage and the Ground Transportation Center include two from Indiana. All five were selected from a group of 52 finalists, which had been narrowed down from an initial pool of more than 550 applicants from the U.S. and several foreign countries. The proposed artworks present a wide variety of artistic approaches and highlight pure artistic form as well as themes from Indiana history and culture.

The public is invited to review and comment on the new artwork concepts, which will be on display at the Indianapolis Artsgarden in downtown Indianapolis from February 28 through March 12. The artwork concepts and more information about the artists are also available at www.newindianapolisairport.com.

The five artists and their proposed designs are:

• Jackie Chang, a New York-based artist, has proposed a pair of glass and marble mosaics for the Ground Transportation Center meant to inspire viewers to reflect on the relationships between time and place, and the present and future of air travel;

• Charles Gick, a West Lafayette video and installation artist and member of the art faculty at Purdue University, has designed a series of still and video images for the Ground Transportation Center that show the joy and wonder of flight;

• Ralph Helmick and Stuart Schechter, from Massachusetts, have proposed a suspended sculpture that refers to Indiana’s role in the history of automobile design and manufacturing for the Ground Transportation. The Massachusetts-based artist team proposes to use an actual, vintage Stutz or Studebaker car in the finished artwork;
  
  
• Greg Hull, an Indianapolis artist who teaches sculpture at the Herron School of Art, proposes to suspend a series of kinetic (moving) sculptures in the parking garage’s five-story atrium;
  
  
• Christopher Janney, a Massachusetts-based artist, proposes to fill the parking garage atrium with constantly shifting patterns of light and sound.
  

Through commissioned, site-specific and/or architecturally integrated works of art, the Indianapolis International Airport will provide its visitors from the global community access to a wide variety of artists and art forms from Indianapolis, Indiana, the United States and the world. The $3.9 million Airport Arts and Culture Program seeks to raise the level of interest and enjoyment of art and artists on the part of guests and residents alike.

The $1.1 billion New Indianapolis Airport will feature a new terminal building located between the two existing main runways along with new highway access, new and improved parking and support facilities and improved utilities and airside operations. The new airport is scheduled to open in late 2008.

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