Indy Airport May Remove Public Art in Favor of Ad Wall
The Indianapolis Business Journal reports that this week the Indianapolis airport should be deciding if it will remove a site-specific work by local artist James Wille Faust, “Chrysalis," in favor of a video wall that will feature advertisements.
The Indianapolis Business Journal reports that this week the Indianapolis airport should be deciding if it will remove a site-specific work by local artist James Wille Faust, “Chrysalis” (2008), in favor of a video wall that will feature advertisements.
The artist has already declined the airport’s offer to have him modify and move the piece to the Indiana Convention Center. “It’s bastardizing his piece, No. 1 … It was never meant for any space other than that wall,” Martha Faust, the artist’s wife and business manager, said.
On the artist’s website, Faust explains that the airport work “represents the transformation of a chrysalis into an open-winged moth or butterfly, symbolic of flight.”
The good news is that many people have been voicing their opposition to the move to ditch the art in favor of ads and numerous editorial and articles have come down in favor of Faust’s work. One editorial by Royce Smith, an art history professor at Wichita State University, explained:
While most people remember airport experiences for their pat-downs and meltdowns, I remembered the Indianapolis airport for its understanding that art educates, amazes and soothes, and James Wille Faust’s work “Chrysalis” was the crown jewel of that mission.
The dean of a local art and design college framed the issue another way:
It’s just kind of insulting to the artist to have work taken down because of an advertising opportunity.
But all is not lost, and the Indianapolis Star newspaper reported today that the airport may yet chose another site and leave the work alone.
