artnet : Yoko Ono Will Help Transform JFK Airport’s New Terminal
A $4.2 billion upgrade to the New York airport will include art installations from the city's biggest institutions.
Rendering of the new JFK Terminal 6 oculus. Courtesy of JFK Millennium Partners.
When John F. Kennedy International Airport unveils its new $4.2 billion Terminal 6, it will be with a mini New York arts district with installations—including a giant Yoko Ono (b. 1933) work—from four of the city’s leading cultural institutions: the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
“We’re honored to collaborate with such prestigious institutions—icons in the global arts community and deeply rooted in the spirit of New York City,” Steve Thody, CEO of JFK Millennium Partners, the company leading the development project for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said in a statement. “Each installation will reflect and celebrate the vibrant cultural heartbeat of New York as we welcome the world to JFK and beyond.”
The newly announced cultural institution collaborations include a new project by Ono, inspired by PEACE is POWER, a permanent installation at MoMA that the museum commissioned for its 2019 expansion. The MoMA installation covers the walls and ceiling of a long corridor gallery on the third floor of the museum with a sky blue gradient and messages reading “Imagine Peace,” “Spread Peace,” “Act Piece,” and “Think Peace” in white capital letters. On the opposite wall, the work’s title is engraved on the windows in 24 languages.
The need for peace has been a theme in Ono’s work since 1969, when she and husband John Lennon (1940–1980), of the Beatles, staged a bed-in as a nonviolent protest against war during their honeymoon. That December, the couple put up billboards in 11 cities reading “WAR IS OVER! If You Want It,” which would later become the chorus of their hit 1971 single “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).”
Yoko Ono, PEACE is POWER (2019) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Heidi Bohnenkamp, ©2019, the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Lincoln Center is also creating a new large-scale installation for JFK, with a 140-foot mural featuring images of musicians, opera singers, dancers, and actors set against the architecture of the performing arts complex’s famed venues, as well as the city streets. The hope is that the piece will make travelers think about New York as a global stage.
The Met and the AMNH’s contribution to the new airport terminal might be dubbed teasers, with images of their respective collection highlights, such as the Unicorn Tapestries at the Met Cloisters and the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen from the natural history museum’s famed fossil halls. The Met in particular will showcase the breadth of its holdings, with one photograph representing each of its 17 curatorial collections.
“For a region that is renowned for its museums and performing arts centers, it is more than fitting that visitors arriving at Terminal 6 will be greeted by vibrant displays from four of our most popular cultural institutions,” Port Authority chairman Kevin O’Toole said in a statement. “Just as we’ve done at Newark Liberty International Airport’s Terminal A and at LaGuardia Airport, stunning public art and inspiring cultural icons will elevate our new terminals at JFK International into destinations in themselves.”
Airport Art Is on the Rise
The new international terminal is set to open in phases between 2026 and 2028. It will also include installations from 19 contemporary artists, a $22 million project commissioned in partnership with the Public Art Fund. Among those featured will be Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982), Charles Gaines (b. 1944), Teresita Fernández (b. 1968), and Barbara Kruger (b. 1945).
The new terminal will also feature a picturesque oculus skylight and a large 3D mural outside along the departures roadway titled JFK Global Panorama. Featuring classic imagery of New York City paired with flight paths to destinations around the world, it will be designed by Ombrae Studios, which has developed new, scientific sculptural imaging technology.
Other artworks currently on view at JFK include Outside Time by Dimitar Lukanov, a 30-foot-long steel and aluminum sculpture installed in Terminal 4 in 2014.
Rendering of the new JFK Terminal 6 departures roadway artwork, JFK Global Panorama, designed by Ombrae Studios. Courtesy of JFK Millennium Partners.
The other two major airports in the New York metro area have also upped their art games in the past five years, as part of the Port Authority’s art program.
In 2020, the Public Art Fund helped install permanent works by Jeppe Hein (b. 1974), Sabine Hornig (b. 1964), Laura Owens (b. 1970), and Sarah Sze (b. 1969)at LaGuardia Airport’s new Terminal B. Works by Mariam Ghani (b. 1981), Rashid Johnson (b. 1977), Aliza Nisenbaum (b. 1977), Virginia Overton (b. 1971), Ronny Quevedo (b. 1981), and Fred Wilson (b. 1954), selected with the assistance of the Queens Museum, followed in Terminal C in 2022. And when Newark Liberty International Airport unveiled its new Terminal A later that year, it was with two projects from Public Art Fund, by Layqa Nuna Yawa (b. 1984) and Karyn Olivier (b. 1968).
Written by Sarah Cascone for https://news.artnet.com/