Happier landing likely for airport art

Los Angeles officials on Monday unveiled an art project for Van Nuys Airport that they hope will be more pleasing to the public than the last one they commissioned for the San Fernando Valley airfield.

The new $50,000, 15-foot-tall sculpture, which will feature a concrete, upright airplane wing topped by a bronze eagle, is intended to commemorate the history of the airport as well as aviation in general.

“The community wanted some art that they felt reflected this place,” Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter said, announcing the awarding of the commission to Culver City artist Robert Cunningham. His work, “Spirit of Flight,” will be erected at the airport’s new park-and-ride facility, set for completion in mid-2004.

Last year, officials were barraged by criticism after a city committee of airport officials, artists and architects approved a $270,000 public-art installation for the facility. That project, which is going forward pending approval of a final design, consists of nine statues, each with the likeness of the commissioned artist, Paul Tzanetopoulos, holding signs saying: “You Are Here” alongside maps of Van Nuys, California, the United States and so on out into the universe.

Officials at the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, which oversees the city’s airport art projects, consider the idea “cerebral and avant-garde,” department general manager Margie Reese said.

But it made others scratch their heads. Some called the artwork nothing more than self-portraits by an egotistical artist.

“There were a lot of people who really hated it,” said Coby King, president of the airport’s Citizens Advisory Council.

Tzanetopoulos, who designed the lighting scheme for the illuminated columns at Los Angeles International Airport, says his work has been misunderstood. It’s meant to be “whimsical and engaging,” he said. “It’s all about Van Nuys and movement and flight and travel.”

After the outcry over Tzanetopoulos’ work, Galanter took the lead in a drive for additional airport artwork that would incorporate community input.

Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that runs the Van Nuys airfield, agreed to provide funding. Public meetings were held. A second committee, of five community members and one airport official, considered a field of entrants and chose Cunningham’s wing-themed prototype, which also depicts images of Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes, both of whom flew out of Van Nuys Airport.

“We wanted something to reflect the history of Van Nuys Airport