Client

Overview

Tom Bradley International Terminal (Terminal B), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), CA

As visitors disembark at TBIT, they are welcomed by Pae White’s artwork: Suspended above the terminal’s north and south “sterile corridors” leading international passengers to customs, this linear sculpture inverts the idea of functional infrastructure, turning security into art and art into security by deploying an alternative system of baroque “P”-shaped brackets strung with or without brightly colored cordage. The brackets without cordage serve as relics of the process that created the artwork and make it site specific: a document of the many seen and unseen contingencies that shaped it.

The work consists 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, located in Terminals 3, 4, and 6. The work also includes 7,484 gold brackets – eleven of which are actual 14K gold. Attempting to identify the actual gold brackets offers passengers a playful distraction from the long journey to customs.

Goals

The artwork is installed in the area of the airport called The Sterile Corridor which is the long walkway one enters into directly after an international flight and prior to Passport Control, a highly secure area with a multitude of restrictions. I embraced the restrictions and let it shape the work

Process

Medium:
powder coated aluminum, Silverflex and 18 carat gold

Dimensions:
8" x 25’ x 1500’