Airport art roundup: Best exhibits at a terminal near you
— -- Next time you're at the airport, take a moment to look around. Not just at all the shops, restaurants and harried holiday travelers, but at all the really great art. In addition to some truly wonderful — and valuable — collections of permanent and site-specific art, many U.S. airports offer ambitious rotating schedules of art, history and cultural exhibitions that can be as intriguing as anything you'll find in town. And this time of year, who has time to go into town anyway?
Here's just a sampling of some current exhibitions to seek out next time you find yourself stuck at the airport:
San Francisco International Airport was the first airport in the country to have a museum program accredited by the American Association of Museums and it would be easy to spend an entire day touring the more than two dozen galleries spaces scattered throughout the terminals. If you're here for just an hour, though, make tracks for Inside Track, an exhibit that highlights the golden era of toy trains with more than 200 vintage toy trains and accessories, including two miniature train layouts and a few endearing specialty items such as Mickey Mouse handcars from the 1930s and the "Lady Lionel," a pastel train marketed to girls during the 1950s.
•Find it:Inside Track: Toy Trains is on display, pre-security, in the International Terminal Main Hall through April 13, 2009.
One of two touring exhibitions honoring the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift is currently at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The Berlin Airlift — A Legacy of Friendship includes more than 60 panels of historic black and white photos and pays tribute to the efforts of the U.S. and Allied forces that helped save more than two million men, women and children during a Soviet Union blockade of the German city beginning in 1948.
•Find it:The Berlin Airlift – A Legacy of Friendship is pre-security, next to the Airport Office Building elevators on the south end of the ticketing level through December 31, 2008. The exhibit will be at the Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers in January.
At any one time, you'll find more than a dozen art exhibits at Philadelphia International Airport. Exhibits here feature everything from the earliest American flags to the latest in modern photography. One of the more popular shows currently on view at the airport is Randall Cleaver's Something Old/Something New, which features about two dozen lighted and functioning clocks and lamps made from found and salvaged objects such as globes, gears, tins and toasters.
•Find it:Randall Cleaver's found-art clocks and lamps are on display between Terminals C and D.
If you've got a few hours to spend at Denver International Airport, grab a brochure and take a self-guided walking tour of the airport's eclectic permanent art collection. Along the way, look for the temporary exhibit about Colorado architecture and for the No Place Like Home installation, which displays the intertwined work of four artists (David Fodel, Brigid McAuliffe, Allie Pohl and Sarah Soriano) from the graduate program in Electronic Media Arts Design at the University of Denver. Together they explore memories of transition, comfort, farewells and returns with everything from playful video displays to colorful and cozy socks.
•Find it:Crossroads: Colorado Architecture Then, Now and Beyond is on the Mezzanine Level of Concourse A through January 2009. No Place Like Home is in the airport's Jeppesen Terminal, Galleries of Denver, through February 2009.
The undulating, three-dimensional On the Wings of a Dragon by David Driskell and Jerome Meadows is finally home again at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport after a year-long absence for reconditioning. One of 29 impressive large pieces in the airport's art collection, the segmented sculpture stretches for 100 feet high above a corridor floor that has a complementary serpentine pattern.
•Find it:On the Wings of a Dragon can be seen from the pre-security departures level of International Terminal D. Look up!
New York's Albany International Airport continues its tradition of commissioning temporary site-specific artwork with Dream of Flight by Joy Taylor. The installation fills three soaring ceiling wells and is made from 240 shimmering, oversized, blue, gold and green foil leaves that give the illusion of falling. The airport has also extended an exhibition displaying "jaw-dropping and wondrous" objects from 25 regional museums. The items on display include mittens made from collie fur and a dog treadmill once used to generate power to run washing machines and other mechanical devices.
•Find it:Dream of Flight is on the second floor of Concourse B, through 2010.
At Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, artwork by Mindy Sue Meyers in the Stitchalicious exhibit looks exactly like cupcakes, doughnuts, candy and other treats. Look more closely, though, and you'll discover that the massive piles of sweets are actually made of felt, Brillo pads, sponges and other materials that the artist says "may look tempting at first, but their materials, abundance or size can leave one feeling quite sour."
•Find it:Stitchalicous is pre-security in Terminal 3 on Level 2 in the north art alcove near Starbucks, through May 2009.
This list is by no means exhaustive. Right now, plenty of other airports, from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to San Diego International Airport, have formal gallery spaces and assorted nooks and crannies filled with top-notch permanent and temporary art exhibitions that you won't want to miss. And keep in mind that like the airports in Denver, Philadelphia, and Phoenix, many airports distribute free brochures that both describe all the artwork and tell you where it is.
So next time you're stuck at the airport, don't just sit there – get cultured. And be sure and share your favorite airport art in comments below.
Harriet Baskas writes about travel etiquette for MSNBC.com and is the author of the airport guidebook Stuck at the Airport and a blog of the same name.