Orlando Airport Eyes $5M Art Sculpture for New Terminal
Orlando International Airport could soon feature a giant child in pursuit of a toy plane and accompanied by a dog, all part of a towering sculpture that would be the signature visual for tourists deplaning at the airport’s south terminal slated to open next year.
“The artwork is a 50-foot fiberglass child in flight, with a 15 foot ‘paper airplane’ suspended in midair or in hand preflight,” states a project proposal to the airport. “Alongside the child is a 15-foot fiberglass puppy, a companion through his story of a symbol of home.”
That proposed artwork is among several that the airport’s board will review Wednesday.
The winner is to be paid $4.9 million, a fee that would come ultimately from the airport’s revenue stream that includes airline, restaurant and rental-car fees.
“For something at the gateway to our world-class community, it’s a small amount to spend,” said Terry Olson, director of Orange County government’s arts and cultural affairs and a member of the committee that reviewed proposals.
Many airports across the U.S. and parts of the world emphasize art and some have drawn widespread attention.
An enormous blue horse rears up powerfully at Denver’s airport and Sacramento’s airport is renown for a red bus-size rabbit, seemingly jumping down a hole.
Miami International Airport features an artwork called “Harmonic Convergence,” a 72-foot-long window wall with diamond-shaped panes of colored glass set in white, steel framing. Its nearly $800,000 cost was covered by Miami-Dade County’s Art in Public Places as part of a county ordinance that allocates 1.5% of the construction cost of new county buildings for artworks.
Installed for nearly $1 million, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport displays “The Aviators,” mirrored sunglasses that weigh 2,000 pounds and are set amid a painting of puffy clouds.
Orlando airport officials said they don’t know where the proposed price tag of $4.9 million ranks among other airport artworks. But they noted that amount falls within 1% of the new terminal’s $3.2 billion construction cost.
Airport spokeswoman Carolyn Fennell said the airport’s parent agency, the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, isn’t required to spend any amount on art, although the airport’s art policy states that as much as 1% of a project cost “may be” set aside for public art.
The signature artwork proposed for the new terminal would entail a significant amount of design, fabrication, materials and installation costs. The artist fees are in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“All of the finalists were artists or design teams with international reputations and had produced major public art commissions in locations around the world,” said Hansen Mulford, curator at Orlando Museum of Art and a member of the committee that selected the four finalists.
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