ARTIST’S ANIMAL CARAVAN ILLUMINATES ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN NEW EXHIBIT AT LAX 

	Cynthia Minet’s Packing (Caravan) Video
	Cynthia Minet’s Packing (Caravan) installation features four life-sized animals made from recycled and repurposed objects.
	Detail of the elephant in Minet’s installation.
	Viewers may recognize many of the everyday objects used to create the animals.
	Detail of an ox’s assembled plastic parts.
	Minet’s glowing camel displays both balance and movement.
	Detail of a kneeling ox.
Photo credit: Kelly Barrie, Panic Studio LA

Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) is pleased to present a new installation by artist Cynthia Minet at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT). Packing (Caravan) consists of four life-sized domesticated animals: a dromedary, two oxen, and an elephant. Made from recycled and repurposed plastic containers, children’s toys, and other recognizable, everyday objects, the sculptures are lit with LEDs. These sculptures of plastic and light grew out of Minet’s concern about the environment and society’s insatiable desire for disposable goods, while simultaneously humorously recognizing the international travel experience. The art installation, created through a partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, is on view in the art display case in the Customs Hall on the arrivals level of TBIT for ticketed passengers through September 2013.

Minet’s Packing (Caravan), part of her Unsustainable Creatures series, was initially inspired by the draft animals that were used in settling of the Western United States, including the proliferation of camels in California. It also references Minet’s interest in emphasizing civilization’s worldwide dependence on electricity and petroleum-based products, and rampant consumerism. The sculptural beasts of burden are purposely made of synthetic materials found in landfills. They display various postures, capturing the creatures’ moments of struggle or submission. The interiors of the animals glow from LEDs, exposing wires twisting throughout the sculptures, further underscoring Minet’s message of society’s reliance on energy sources.

Minet’s sobering environmental and consumerism messages are contrasted by the bright, playful colors of the plastic objects. Upon closer inspection of the sculptures, viewers will undoubtedly recognize a discarded food container, an old plastic serving tray, or an empty laundry detergent bottle, deconstructed and assembled with other plastics to represent a hoof, horn or hind of one of the animals. “Friends and neighbors contribute their recyclables for use in these projects,” states Minet, “and much material is culled from dumpsters and thrift stores.”

Minet’s artworks have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and internationally. Her next project in the Unsustainable Creatures series will be pack dogs, an installation for the GYRE exhibition at the Anchorage Museum, Alaska, in Februrary 2014. Minet received her MFA in sculpture at San Francisco State University, and currently teaches sculpture and drawing at Moorpark College in Moorpark, California. She lives in Los Angeles.

ARTIST’S VISUAL APPROACH TELLS A STORY IN PHOTOGRAPHS AT LAX 

	Eileen Cowin’s Point of Departure installation tells a story in four large-scale photographs focusing on the emotional significance of simple gestures and everyday objects.
	Eileen Cowin’s photography installation wraps around the display case on the Departures Level in Terminal 1.
	Installation view of Eileen Cowin’s Point of Departure.
	Installation view of Eileen Cowin’s Point of Departure.
Photo credit: Kelly Barrie, Panic Studio LA

(Los Angeles, California – April 4, 2013) Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) announces a new photography installation by artist Eileen Cowin at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in the display case at Terminal 1 on the Departures Level. Point of Departure tells a story in four large-scale color photographs focusing on the emotional significance of simple gestures and everyday objects to portray ideas about chance, fate, memory, and experience.

Cowin’s Point of Departure explores the fine line between public and private, the representation of intimacy, the investigation of the familiar, and the emotional content of the mundane. Contrasting four distinct images—from a shelf of books with travel-related titles to a view of a man leaving an apartment building with his packed bags—each photograph creates or references a separate event. At first glance, these images appear as unconnected scenarios; however, upon closer look, the images are linked through the appearance of reoccurring individuals or visual clues. These clues let Cowin establish a visual narrative that allows the viewer to interpret, conclude, and draw meaning related to one’s own internal and external experiences.

Cowin’s work responds thematically to LAX Airport. According to the artist, “the words ‘departure’ or ‘depart’ can signify many things, from the act of leaving, to a sign at the airport, to a new course of action. I thought these multiple meanings were especially fitting for the airport—a place that can be about possibilities, good-byes, new beginnings, and adventures,” states Cowin.

The art installation, created through a partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, is on view for ticketed passengers through December 2013.

CELEBRATED LOS ANGELES ARTISTS FEATURED IN NEW EXHIBITIONS AT LAX 

	Installation view of Ken Gonzales-Day’s LightJet prints mounted on aluminum in Terminal 1 at LAX.
	Detail installation view of artworks.
	Detail installation view of two digital monoprints, Cross and Kayla II, by Mark Dean Veca.
	Installation view of My Life in Airports featuring Deborah Aschheim’s ink drawings of iconic Los Angeles Mid-Century modern buildings and sketches from her travel diary.
	Detail installation view of Deborah Aschheim’s My life in airports: Check in (no. 1), 2009-2011, ink on Dura-lar drawings.
	Deborah Aschheim, Theme Building No. 2 (She Said, How I Felt About Flying When I Was a Little Girl), 2010, ink on Dura-lar.
	Deborah Aschheim, Capitol (I see again in memory like a dream), 2010, ink, gesso, and pigment on sanded acrylic.
Photo credit: Kelly Barrie, Panic Studio LA

(Los Angeles, California – February 21, 2013) Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, is pleased to showcase two new art exhibitions at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in Terminal 1 on the Departures Level. A Look at COLA Individual Artist Fellowships, on view at Gate 1, features a group exhibition of 21 distinguished Los Angeles artists acknowledged for their artistic achievement by the City of Los Angeles. My Life in Airports, installed at Gate 2, features Deborah Aschheim’s images of Los Angeles’ monuments to the future combined with sketches of her first-person narrative of her travel diary. The exhibitions on are view for ticketed passengers through December 2013.

About LAWA Art Program
Initiated in 1990, the purpose of the Public Art and Exhibitions Program at Los Angeles World Airports is to educate and entertain the traveling public at Los Angeles (LAX) and LA/Ontario International Airports and the FlyAway® Bus Terminal at Van Nuys Airport. The program showcases local and regional artists through temporary exhibitions and permanent public art installations, which enhance and humanize the overall travel experience for millions every year. 

About Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
LAX is the seventh busiest airport in the world and third in the United States, offering more than 565 daily flights to 81 domestic cities and over 1,000 weekly nonstop flights to 65 international destinations on over 75 carriers.  In 2010, LAX served over 59 million passengers, processed over 1.9 million tons of air cargo valued at nearly $84 billion, and handled 575,835 aircraft operations (landings and takeoffs).  LAX is part of a system of three Southern California airports
– along with LA/Ontario International and Van Nuys general aviation – that are owned and operated by Los Angeles World Airports, a proprietary department of the City of Los Angeles that receives no funding from the City’s general fund.