ARTISTS CREATE FROM PATTERNS TO PATHWAYS INTO OUR ENVIRONMENT IN NEW ART EXHIBIT AT LAX

(Los Angeles, California – September 3, 2010)  Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs,announces a group exhibition titled From Patterns to Pathways , coordinated by guest curator Timothy Nolan, at Los AngelesInternationalAirport (LAX).   Four installations feature recycled and repurposed materials by Los Angeles-based artists Julia Latan é , Rebecca Niederlander, and Carrie Ungerman.  Each artist incorporates patterning and repetition to create abstract artworks that reference the natural world and our relationship to it.  Nolan, an artist and independent curator, was a 2008 recipient of the City of Los Angeles (COLA) Individual Artist Fellowship.

The art exhibit is located in Terminal 3 on the Lower/Arrivals Level on view to the general public through January 4, 2011.

Constructed on site, Ungerman arranges 30,000 individual water bottle labels, collected from her community, into the form of a running river.  Blue and white labels are laminated and strung over 50 feet against a silver painted wall to simulate a twisting waterway as it evolves into tributaries.  The artwork alludes to consumption, preservation, and society’s never-ending demand for water.

Niederlander fills the hallway ceiling with clusters of multi-colored electrical wires suspended like a shifting cloud. The spindly tendrils create an interconnected network of mobiles that offers a different perspective for passengers as they pass beneath the artwork. 

Latané uses common industrial materials to invite the viewer into an association with the forces of outer space.  In one artwork, Latané re-creates the vast pull of a black hole with a swirling pattern of bejeweled velvet cushions.  In another artwork, shiny nail heads hammered into black panels mimic the night sky and city lights. 

The artworks offer pathways through which viewers are able to wander and wonder at the vastness and complexity of our natural surroundings.  “I hope passengers might contemplate the fact that every living thing begins and ends with a definitive, elegant pattern,” states Nolan.

            The purpose of the Airport Arts Exhibition 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 memorable 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. Exhibitions can be found on display in Terminals 1, 2, 3 and Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX, and Terminals 2 and 4 at LA/Ontario.

Overflow by Carrier Ungerman is constructed from 30,000 water bottles to reflect a streaming waterway as part of From Patterns to Pathways art exhibit in Terminal 3, Lower/Arrivals Level (credit: LAX/Tim McGowan)