SILENT FORM - 1984
Made for the new Tom Bradley Terminal at LAX, and and installed in time for the opening of the 1984 summer Olympics, which were staged in LA, Silent Form comprised 36 banners, each 20-foot long, secured at either end to red fiber glass rods. “The panels, of a translucent white batiste that looks like parachute cloth, will be subtly sprayed to suggest sun, shadow, and motion, indeed a kite in flight.” [1] The banners were suspended from the ceiling of the Terminal, along the building’s axis.
“The building’s architects, Daniel Dworsky and William Pereira, asked Van Sant only for a flight-themed piece that would have the practical subjective function of confirming the axis and orientation of the building.” [2]
SILENT FORM INSTALLED AT THE TOM BRADLEY TERMINAL, LAX, C. 1984
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Los Angeles International Airport
Thomas Bradley Terminal, Los Angeles, CA.
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1984
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"A new international terminal...was designed by an architectural joint venture that includedWilliam L. Pereira & Associates, Daniel Dworksy & Associates, Bonito Sinclair & Associates, and John Williams & Associates." [1]
Historic Resources Report, LA City Clerk, "Appendix B-2 Historic Building Documentation Continental Airlines General Office Building," http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2017/17-0017_misc_7_01-13-2017.pdf.
Last Accessed 08/24/2024
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Batiste fabric, spray paint, and fiberglass.
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Thirty-six rectangular pieces, each 20-feet long. Width, approx. 2-feet.
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Unknown
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Possibly the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners.
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Unknown. (The building still stands, but no longer houses REIU, Local 770.)
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TVS digital records
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"Like Henry Moore, whom he knows and admires, Van Sant is more comfortable talking about technology and problem-solving than about abstract-aesthetics, but he has said ‘Art is no longer a luxury, it has to be part of our daily life.’
In the studio adjoining the house he designed and built years ago on a precipitous Hollywood hill, he has built a slightly Rube Goldbergian rig in which the bolt of batiste hangs at ceiling height and feeds down through a slotted frame through which van Sant can spray it and hem the sections.
‘I want to call it ‘Angel’s Flight II’ Van Sant says, ‘but we haven’t finalized that yet.” [1]
All Quotations: Charles Champlin, “A Private Love of Public Art,” Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1984, pg. L1.
