November 21, 2011

Miami Beach Getting Ready for Art Basel Dec. 1-4

Live graffiti painting. A colossal rose bed soaring 20 feet high. Early photos of Andy Warhol, a Picasso up for auction and a naked woman living in a pig pen. They're all part of the lineup for Art Basel Miami Beach, which runs Dec. 1-4, with a host of related events beginning Nov. 30.

Photo by Robin Hill - Enlarge

The art experience will begin for many at Miami International Airport with Harmonic Convergence, a 72-foot-long window wall with diamond-shaped panes of glass in 150 transparent colors. The installation by architect and composer Christopher Janney creates a gradually changing pattern of colors, similar to a rainbow. It was installed a few months ago in an airport entrance by a people-mover walkway. Travelers will hear sounds Janney recorded during trips to the Florida Everglades, scuba dives in the ocean, and other natural environments. At the top of each hour, a short composition with percussion instruments plays, marking the time of day. Continue 

September 4, 2011

Art at Miami International Airport Adds a Cultural Dimension to Travel

The little girl looks to be about 6 years old. She is hopping on one foot, landing first on a piece of coral, then on a sea anemone, then a starfish, and so on, all outlined in bronze and embedded in the floor of Terminal D at Miami International Airport. She could hop across this black terrazzo sea flecked with bits of mother-of-pearl for half a mile, if only her mother would let her. “I wish I had a camera,” exclaims Yolanda Sanchez. She is leading a writer on a tour of MIA’s art exhibits and public artworks.

Sanchez has been the director of fine art and cultural affairs at the airport since 1995, the same year that installation began on Michele Oka Doner’s floor, A Walk on the Beach. “Michele would love this,” Sanchez smiles, watching the girl. Then she continues the tour, describing what A Walk on the Beach will look like after it is refurbished in the coming months.

Though the floor is only 15 years old, the 37 million people who trudge through the airport every year take a toll. The process will be slow — it’s not scheduled for completion until January — because the epoxy terrazzo must be hand-buffed by a team of three. And those three people will only be able to work three hours a night, the only time each day that Terminal D is closed to passengers. Continue

May 14, 2011

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In the thick of the Saturday afternoon rush, the glass double doors in the South Terminal opened wide and travelers from all parts – Europe, Latin American and the Caribbean – finished the customs process and entered a two-level lobby alive with classical music.

Friends and family gathered to meet travelers quite suddenly shared this soaring space with a flash-mob performance of sorts by the Miami Symphony Orchestra. Suddenly, the lobby was filled with beautiful overtures and concertos and unsuspecting travelers. The performance, titled Romantic Finale, was part of the MISO’s Music in Unsuspected Spaces program, and a perfect complement to the airport’s efforts to offer more art and culture.

“Our mission is to humanize the airport environment, make it a welcoming space for passengers in what we know can be a stressful experience,’’ says Yolanda Sánchez, the airport’s director of Fine Arts & Cultural Affairs, which has brought a series of art exhibits to the airport. “We also want to support the arts and culture in our community.’’ Continue

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Miami Symphony “Flash Mobs” MIA

It wasn’t your typical Muzak which greeted international travelers arriving at the South Terminal of Miami International Airport on Saturday. "Imagine that you are arriving with from Europe or Central America. You have your suitcase in your hands and you find yourself in the middle of a performance of real classical music. It’s a wow moment," says MISO music director and conductor Eduardo Marturet, who led a similar performance at Aventura Mall last year. "The idea was to transform the terminal into a concert hall and maybe even give the people arriving here a different idea of what Miami is about, something beyond the sun and the beach." Continue

March 17, 2011

In a Stressful Setting, Artistic Treatment for the Traveler 

About 35.7 million passengers visited Miami International Airport last year, many of them on international flights. With this in mind, Yolanda Sanchez, the airport’s director of fine arts and cultural affairs, said she deliberately teamed with local museums, cultural institutions and social outreach programs. “We want to bring the destination to the airport,” she said.

Among the current offerings are a mural by local children, ironworks from Haiti and a show of 24 large-scale photographs by recent participants in the Everglades Park Service’s artist-in-residence program. Ms. Sanchez said a 4,400-square-foot sculpture garden was planned for the new North Terminal.  Continue 

March 11, 2011

Bon Voyage! Random Acts of Culture at Miami Intl Airport 

On Friday, March 11, 2011 seven performers from the Florida Grand Opera surprised travelers at the Miami International Airport with performances of Verdi’s Brindisi “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” from La Traviata

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January 10, 2011

Miami International Airport: A Trip of Its Own

As you’re flying down the concourse at Miami International Airport, roller board bumping along on your heels ……leave time to peruse the artwork zipping past your overloaded cerebellum. Remember: Life is the journey, not the destination. Taking that to heart, Miami International Airport has installed several first-class art additions along its myriad corridors.

Yolanda Sanchez, Director of Airport Fine Arts and Cultural Affairs (MIA) pioneered the idea of Art in the airport environment. MIA has both permanent and rotating exhibitions programs. Continue 

December 23, 2010

Five Airports with Art Worth Seeing 

Miami International Airport is the largest U.S. gateway for Latin America and the Caribbean. So it seems fitting that the airport's international baggage claim is home to a piece called "Ghost Palms" by artist Norie Sato.

Situated at five window bays along a 300-foot-long glass wall, the work takes its inspiration from the ubiquitous palm trees that populate the Miami-Dade County landscape. Each of the five sites, 24 feet tall, expresses a specific, strong structure of the palm, whether the frond, the branch or the trunk. Hand-painted and sandblasted glass, laminated glass, aluminum and terrazzo were used to create the work. The colors in the glass are formed with embedded powders that reflect multiple spectrums of light, which not only change colors throughout the day, but alter as passengers move throughout the baggage claim area. Continue 

November 7, 2010

Barbara Neijna’s Extraordinary ‘Foreverglades’at MIA Wins Prestigious Award 

The vast, compelling work of art celebrates one of the world’s great miracles — the slow-moving “river of grass” we call the Everglades. But the art, which fills much of Miami International Airport’s Concourse J, is in many ways a miracle on its own. Barbara Neijna’s Foreverglades is one of the largest public-art projects ever built, covering floors and walls of two floors of the concourse, filling it with words and images, color and light — and even more, perhaps, with insight and inspiration.

On Friday, Neijna and Foreverglades received the first-ever international Art and Work Award for a project in the built environment, an award of such magnitude that other finalists included the city of London and Royal Dutch Telecom. The award was announced at the 2010 World Architecture Conference in Barcelona. It’s an extraordinary honor for an extraordinary accomplishment. Continue