John F. Kennedy Airport, one of the world’s busiest crossroads, will soon be its destination in its own right for world-class art. Eighteen artists hailing from seven countries have been tapped to create installations for the airport’s new Terminal 6, set to open in 2026, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced on Tuesday.
The $4.2 billion terminal is now set to host works by artists based in New York, including Sky Hopinka, Charles Gaines, and Barbra Kruger. The group also includes a significant amount of artists who are based in New York City or New York State but were born abroad, such as Felipe Baeza and Uman, who were hail from Mexico and Somalia, respectively.
Given the artist list remains steady, JFK is set to boast the largest permanent art collection of any New York airport, following the recent unveilings of new public artwork by the Port Authority at LaGuardia Airport in Queens and Newark Liberty International Airport.
In 2022, LaGuardia’s Delta Terminal C debuted six large-scale installations—by Rashid Johnson, Aliza Nisenbaum, Ronny Quevedo, and others—with nods to New York’s diversity and history; Terminal B has five installations. Newark, meanwhile, gained two monumental artworks by Layqa Nuna Yawar and Karyn Olivier.
The art budget for JFK’s Terminal 6 is $22 million and is funded totally by JFK Millennium Partners, a consortium of private developers headed by the Vantage Group, which also backed LaGuardia’s art transformation. Terminal 6’s budget, however, is around double the dollar amount expended on LaGuardia. Port Authority has again teamed up with the Public Art Fund, the New York–based nonprofit responsible for commissioning the artworks at LaGuardia and Newark. (The curation of LaGuardia’s Terminal C was left to the Queens Museum.)
The artworks planned for Terminal 6 include suspended sculptures by Laure Prouvost and Haegue Yang; wall works by Nevin Aladag and Sky Hopinka; and 10 monumental glass mosaic floor medallions that promise to invoke “a New York sense of place,” per the Port Authority. Among the artists working in the last medium are Shara Hughes, Eddie Martinez, Kambui Olujimi, Candida Alvarez, and Charline von Heyl.
“Public art that is inspiring and evocative of our region is an essential part of the Port Authority’s strategy to create world-class airports that are becoming destinations in their own right,” Port Authority executive director Rick Cotton said in a statement. “Just as we have done at LaGuardia and at Newark-Liberty’s Terminal A, the public art at JFK’s new Terminal 6 will dazzle travelers and help create a sense of place unique to New York.”
