YOU ARE HERE: LOS ANGELES ARTISTS TAKE ON THE CITY IN EXHIBIT AT LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

(Los Angeles, California – April 20, 2009)  Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs,announces a new exhibit on display at Los AngelesInternationalAirport (LAX) featuring art reflecting the diversity and eclecticism of Los Angeles by a range of Los Angeles-based artists.  Artworks include photograph collages, paintings, and a customized rickshaw.

“You Are Here: Art By and About Los Angeles” is located in the Customs Area of the Tom Bradley International Terminal on the arrivals level and is on view for ticketed passengers. The exhibit is free and on display through June 12, 2009.  “You Are Here” was co-curated by guest curators Sonia Mak and Shervin Shahbazi.  Ms. Mak is the gallery director and curator for the Morono Kiang Gallery and formerly served as a curator for the ChineseAmericanMuseum, both in Los Angeles.  Mr. Shahbazi has served as an independent curator since 1998 and curated the first art walk for the City of Long Beach, as well as exhibitions at Self-Help Graphics & Art, El Pueblo Historical Monument, and The Brewery Art Colony in Los Angeles.

The artists featured in the exhibit include Sandra de la Loza, Ricardo Duffy, Clement Hanami, Sandra Low, Michael Massenburg, and Steven Yao-Chee Wong. Using the city of Los Angeles as both their subject and setting, the artworks created by these artists serve as ruminations on the city’s mixed lineage of beauty and brutality, as well as the cultural diversity, spectacular artifice, and historical erasure that have come to define Los Angeles.  The artworks represent the multifaceted and complex identity of Los Angeles—as a creative capital, a teeming international metropolis, a center of opposing social and political factors, and, of course, a hub of pop culture glitz.

            The purpose of the Art Exhibits Program at LAX and LA/Ontario International Airport (ONT), is to educate and entertain the traveling public, while emphasizing a cultural experience highlighting what makes Los Angeles unique and interesting.

Exhibits may be historic, popular, artistic, or graphic design in nature and may arise from museums, fine art, archives, environment, or other fields.  Exhibits are on display in Terminals 1, 2, 3 and Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX, and Terminals 2 and 4 at LA/Ontario.