Slices of New Jersey skyline photographs are suspended in two large helix-like structures, hanging from the inside of an airport terminal.

Karyn Olivier Approach

Newark Terminal A

On Permanent View

About the Exhibition

To create Approach, Karyn Olivier embarked on an extensive photographic survey of Newark and the surrounding region. She captured the extraordinary tapestry of New Jersey’s iconic skylines, robust infrastructure, and natural beauty. Slices of land and sky are suspended in two helix-like structures: one that depicts daytime and the other night. Each ring is double-sided, and presents two distinct views: when looking up, a bird’s eye view; and when looking down from above, a skyward view. This inversion echoes the temporary disorientation that travel often causes as we transit multiple time zones to arrive in different places with new perceptions. As passengers approach the sculptures, the rings begin to align concentrically, revealing a rich topographical mosaic. The artwork may even appear to move, compressing or expanding as our view shifts. The result is a dynamic study of both landscape and time, two elements that define our unique experience of place.

Special thanks to UAP Company, Torsilieri Inc., Peter Massini/Big City Aerials, and Cally Iden.

Installation Photos

Slices of New Jersey skyline photographs are suspended in two large helix-like structures, hanging from the inside of an airport terminal. Behind the sculpture...

About the Artist

Karyn Olivier View Profile

Karyn Olivier lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. She considers history, displacement, migration, and visibility/invisibility through conceptual sculptures made of industrial materials and found objects. In these sculptures, conventional figuration is absent, but the vestiges of bodies are central. With this transposal of the human subject, Olivier collapses multiple histories, memories, and times, creating singular material snapshots of larger processes of movement and change.

Olivier has had solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and the University of Buffalo Art Gallery, NY, as well as at galleries in Italy, Mexico, and the US. She has participated in group exhibitions at Documenta 15, Kassel, Germany; the Gwangju and Busan Biennials, South Korea; the World Festival of Black Arts and Culture, Dakar, Senegal; Whitney Museum of Art of American Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; MoMA PS1, Queens; Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh; and more.

(as of 2023)

About Creative Partnerships and Newark Terminal A

Extending our core mission to present dynamic exhibitions by the world’s most compelling artists and make culture accessible to all, Public Art Fund: Creative Partnerships brings strategic planning, curatorial, project management, and communications expertise to leading cultural institutions, corporations, and civic organizations across the globe. Through these collaborations, Public Art Fund commissions permanent installations and temporary exhibitions in line with the unique vision of our partners and the specific parameters of each site, resulting in new artworks that activate public spaces, create engaged constituencies, and amplify the impact of our partners’ own initiatives through the power of public art.

Public Art Fund was invited by Munich Airport NJ and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to realize the two monumental, site-specific commissions. They may be encountered on multiple levels and at various points in a traveler’s journey through the terminal. Cascading from the departures level to the arrivals hall are Karyn Olivier’s twin 50-foot suspended sculptures. Titled Approach, Olivier’s dynamic installation celebrates flight by capturing different views of Newark and Elizabeth, NJ, in photographs of local architecture, infrastructure, and topography shot from sunrise to nightfall.

The artworks by Karyn Oliver are commissioned by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and Munich Airport NJ, in partnership with Public Art Fund.