Art Installation at J.F.K. Faces Possible Destruction

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Every year, more than seven million international air passengers are greeted gladly on their arrival in the United States — not by forbidding blank corridors or a blizzard of oversize advertising, but by billowing, cloudlike, buttercream-colored curtains stretching hundreds of feet along a periwinkle sky.

“Curtain Wall,” as the installation is called, is a work of public art by the sculptor Harry Roseman in Terminal 4 at Kennedy International Airport.

Actually, it is 58 works of art; gypsum curtains molded to depict states of calm and turbulence. They range in height from about 8 to 15 feet and in weight from about 280 to 900 pounds. They were commissioned for two long walkways that bring travelers into the vast customs hall. They have been there since 2001.

“This is the front door to the city,” Wendy Feuer, who was the original art consultant to Terminal 4, said last week. “In a way, this is our Emma Lazarus.”

The elements of “Curtain Wall” can be seen as pieces of cloth, a commodity that binds the most disparate cultures. They can be seen as theater curtains parting to reveal the drama of New York. They can be seen as the clouds through which travelers journey, or as land masses linked by the seas.

But they can’t be seen for much longer.

J.F.K. International Air Terminal L.L.C., the private company that developed and operates Terminal 4 — and that commissioned and owns the sculpture — plans to remove it permanently, probably no later than this spring.

This has created a crisis for Mr. Roseman, 68, a professor of art at Vassar College. Unless he can find a new home for “Curtain Wall,” he may be helpless to prevent its destruction, only 13 years after its unveiling.

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