Hartsfield-Jackson plans $1.8 million art installation for new parking deck

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport plans to put a $1.8 million piece of artwork on a new parking garage to be built as part of its expansion.

The airport struck a $181.5 million deal earlier this year to build the new parking deck that will be reachable via Sky Train.

Included as part of the parking garage will be a “kinetic artwork” created by artist Ned Kahn for the facade of the new parking deck.

The airport is seeking Atlanta city council approval for the deal with Kahn. The funding of up to $1.8 million for Kahn’s artwork would be part of the city’s public art ordinance designating 1 percent of construction funds for art.

Kahn, a winner of a 2003 MacArthur Foundation genius grant, is an artist in Sebastopol, Calif. whose work is inspired by "fluid motion" and science, according to his website. His work includes an installation on the facade of a Charlotte, N.C. parking garage, commissioned by the Bank of America, featuring small panels that move in the wind like waves on the wall of the building.

Kahn was selected by a review panel as the artist to work on the facade of the ATL West parking deck, which will be built next to the Georgia International Convention Center.

The ATL West deck will replace parking being displaced during construction of other airport projects, including a new hoteltaxiway and a concourse extension. It will also provide additional parking when the domestic terminal parking decks are demolished and rebuilt. Construction of the ATL West parking deck will start this year and is expected to be completed in 2019.

Kahn's artwork will be far from the most expensive piece at Hartsfield-Jackson. That title belongs to the $4.1 million "Flight Paths" art installation completed last year that simulates a walk through a forest between Concourses A and B.

Separately, the airport plans for a $200,000 piece of artwork by artist Christopher Fennell to be installed at the intersection of Godby Road and Clipper Drive in College Park, near the airport.

The airport owns about 152 acres of land near the intersection, with most of it undeveloped land that's "ripe for development," according to city documents.

The artwork by Fennell is intended to be at the entryway to the property, part of an effort "to generate interest  by companies interested in real estate near the airport," said Hartsfield-Jackson general manager Roosevelt Council during a city council committee briefing Monday.

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