Terminal C at La Guardia Airport Features New Installations by SAIC Alums

School of the Art Institute of Chicago alums Rashid Johnson (MFA 2004) and Aliza Nisenbaum (BFA 2001, MFA 2005) are among the six New York-based artists who were recently commissioned to create large-scale permanent art installations for Delta Air Line’s Terminal C in New York’s La Guardia Airport. Commissioned in partnership with Queens Museum, the new works are part of a $12 million art program designed to turn the transportation hub into an art destination.

*The Travelers’ Broken Crowd* by Rashid Johnsohn. Image courtesy of the New York Times.

*The Travelers’ Broken Crowd* by Rashid Johnsohn. Image courtesy of the New York Times.

Visible from three levels of the arrivals and departures hall, Johnson's 45-by-15-foot mosaic The Travelers’ Broken Crowd features 60 geometric faces constructed using black and white ceramic fragments that are arranged in rows and columns. “It kind of feels like all of us,” he said of the faces, which he calls “Broken Men.” “These characters [...] are witnessing the travelers and being witnessed by the travelers.”

Aliza Nisenbaum’s group portrait painting. Image courtesy of the New York Times.

Aliza Nisenbaum’s group portrait painting. Image courtesy of the New York Times.

Nisenbaum’s group portrait painting of Terminal C’s labor force is located behind a security checkpoint. After conducting Zoom interviews and collecting photographs of each individual worker, she painted each person in front of a colorful airport terminal scene. Though a vinyl reproduction of the painting is being displayed currently, the piece will eventually be translated into a mosaic. “I was interested in what it takes to run an airport and talking to the actual people who are the first faces that people meet when they arrive,” Nisenbaum told the Times.