Pearson Airport’s art works add a new dimension for air travellers

What: Tilted Spheres

Where: Toronto Pearson International Airport

Why: The recent opening of Pier F at Pearson’s Terminal 1 has put the spotlight on a little-known feature of the airport – art – both its permanent collection and its ongoing exhibitions.

Getting the buzz are the new installations in Pier F (international departures), including Richard Serra’s Tilted Spheres, Sol LeWitt’s #1100 Concentric Bands, Gwynn Murrill’s Tiger #5 and Tiger #3 and Dereck Revington’s Skin of Light.

The eclectic collection of art enhances the stunning design of the new airport terminal, focusing form and function and the essence of flight at the airport like never before.

As passengers hurry through the airport, most are probably more focused on getting through security and to the gate on time rather than stopping to appreciate works of art.

But leave it to the children to notice first what their parents don’t always see right away. Kids travelling through the international departures area have fallen for Murrill’s “Tigers” in a big way, laughing and climbing all over them – something the airport welcomes.

“Children love them and have responded so positively. There is special rubber flooring under the tigers so kids can play,” says Lee Petrie, manager of cultural programs for the Greater Toronto Airport Authority.

She says awareness of Pearson’s art program is growing now that Pier F is open. “These art installations were designed for the terminal, and are integral to the design.”

With the opening of Pier F, the GTAA has six changing exhibition spaces and will present approximately 15 exhibitions each year. Some shows are produced by the GTAA, while others are organized in partnership with cultural institutions, artists’ collectives and other organizations in the GTAA.

What passengers see depends on whether they’re flying domestic, transborder or international.

In the transborder area are the Destination East and Destination West galleries.

The exhibit, Art and Cold Cash, in the Destination East Gallery connects contemporary art to discourses surrounding money. The exhibit highlights an important reverse contradiction: although art production as a means for earning a living was introduced to Arctic communities by the federal government, artists in southern Canada live primarily by subsidizing their art production with wage employment.

In Flight, in the Destination West Gallery, is the GTAA’s first juried exhibition. The GTAA put out a call to artists residing in the 416, 519 and 905 area codes to submit two-dimensional works responding to the theme of flight, from abstract interpretations to classic images of the sky as seen from the air, and from intimate views to sweeping panoramas.

In the domestic area of the terminal are a number of works including: the colourful figures of Johnathan Borofsky’s I Dreamed I Could Fly; the intensely colourful Untitled by Katharina Grosse, who works with spray paint and brushes on canvas; the musicality of Robert Charles Coyle’s Flight Song 2001-2003; and the sense of wonder of airborne machines in Ingeborg Jurgensen Hiscox’s Skyward 2003.

Made in Toronto at the Malton Airport Gallery looks at the role of handmade goods in the 21st century. Ceramics, glass, jewelry, textiles and greeting cards by 16 Toronto artisans show viewers the range of creative expression within contemporary Toronto craft.

And what should air travellers be on the look out for next? By the end of April, Michael Snow’s Goddess of Space Rockette 1962 will find a new home in Pier D (domestic area) near Hiscox’s Skyward.