Photo Gallery Art Languishes at Berlin Airport
The Berlin Brandenburg Airport (shown here), was scheduled to open in May 2012, but has been delayed repeatedly. The construction debacle has been a major scandal in Germany.
Six works commissioned to decorate the new airport were finished on time, though. Here, "The Magic Carpet" by California artist Pae White, which is displayed in the check-in hall.
The airport is also home to artist Olaf Nicolai's piece "GADGET," an enormous string of glass beads around a passenger bridge.
While the artists who created the stationary works are disappointed that a wider audience can't yet view their work, a digital smartphone project called "Gate X" is at risk of becoming technologically stale as the airport delay wears on.
Norwegian-German artist Björn Melhus created Gate X, and is frustrated with how the delays have affected the relevance of his work. "A delay of a few months would have been bad enough," says Melhus. "But the date in October was downright terrible, and now we've reached a point where they are saying 2015. I never thought it would be such a disaster."
Melhus and his team placed markers in 24 different areas throughout the airport's gates. Visitors use a free Gate X app they download to their iPhones or Android devices to see the virtual family, which features a mother, father and child living in the airport.
With Gate X, Melhus wanted to call attention to the "no man's land" feeling of being in an airport, where travelers are anxious to get off the ground and fear being stranded. The piece "imagines the airport terminal as a provisional home for these computer-generated, phantom inhabitants," says Melhus.
They do yoga.
They cook.
They sleep.
And even grow cucumbers from their suitcases.
They also barbecue sausage.
Artists were tasked with addressing the theme of land and air to engage visitors. Here, an untitled piece by US artist Matt Mullican.
Oliver Störmer and Cisca Bogman, the husband and wife team behind Berlin-based STOEBO, created constellations embedded in the floor using coins from around the world. Here, their plans for the project.
In March and April 2012, their team drilled holes in the floor and glued in the coins. "It's a pity for us that we can't yet display the work," which was originally about entertaining and exciting people walking through the airport, says artist Störmer. "But the delay and cost overruns give new meaning to our work," he says. "It could now be about spilling money on the floor."
