the work is a permanent installation

the magic carpet

Aircraft are not the only flying objects that will be landing at Berlin Brandenburg Airport. The terminal building will also feature a giant red flying carpet – The Magic Carpet – suspended from the ceiling. The artist who created this piece, Pae White, who lives and works in Los Angeles, today visited the terminal building of the new airport. Together with representatives of the airport operating company, the architects, the Art on Site coordinator Realace GmbH, and Arnold AG, which will be responsible for actually building and installing The Magic Carpet, the artist today decided on the height and the final position of her artwork.

For her visit, a second prototype of the flying carpet was installed under the terminal roof in the check-in hall. This enabled Pae White to choose between two possible installation heights. The two prototypes, installed at different heights, provided a rough impression and allowed the artist to pick the ideal position for the final installation.

The artwork The Magic Carpet by Pae White uses the motif of the flying carpet which is imbued with a wealth of meanings and associations: as a welcome, as the narrator of stories, as the threshold between inside and outside. In the airport the carpet is a membrane between the known and the unknown, between reality and the imagination, memories and hope. The artwork measures 37 x 27 metres, and it consists of an aluminium structure made of 500 elements which is filled with ornaments woven from thin aluminium strips with an overall length of over 12 kilometres. The sculpture will be suspended above the check-in hall and held in place by 150 cables.

“The open nature of the thin metal takes advantage of the daylight exposure in this new, expansive airport. A line drawing in the sky that is flying and unravelling in space”, says Pae White, describing her piece. “Like a story being simultaneously told and untold. Perhaps it is a story of magical transport and whether this is only the stuff of fiction?”