Another massive entertainment venue is about to open in Inglewood, and its aesthetics hints at its goal — to blend sports and art.
The $2 billion Intuit Dome, which will become the new home of the Los Angeles Clippers beginning with the upcoming NBA season, will open next month with a Bruno Mars concert. But on Thursday, July 11, officials provided a first look at six pieces of art that were installed at the arena.
The six pieces, commissioned from Los Angeles artists, are intended to tie into the region the Clippers call home — and to represent the LA area and its residents.
“Their installations represent the architectural marvel we stand in,” Gillian Zucker, CEO of Halo Sports and Entertainment, said Thursday. “We set out to make the Intuit Dome feel like it was for all of you.
“We hope it captures that inclusivity.”
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer envisioned the arena, next door to SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park, as a gathering place where families and fans could come together, Zucker said.
“We wanted engaging work,” she added. “Pieces that feel they belong to everyone, celebrations of community and creativity.”
And that’s exactly what the artists did, she said.
In the plaza near the arena’s entrance, for example, is Glenn Kaino’s “Sails,” a steel-and-wood sculpture of a clipper ship with basketball hoops — inspired by different courts around the world — as its sails. Clipper ships were mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessels designed for speed — and the NBA team’s namesake.
Michael Massenburg’s “Cultural Playground” is a 25-foot, by 100-foot porcelain enamel mural on steel panels, installed on the wall outside of the dome on Prairie Avenue.
It depicts the artist’s “vision of athletes, musicians and dancers playing across an homage of L.A .scenes,” Zucker said, and “expresses his beliefs that the two most profound things that connect people are the arts and sports.”
Jennifer Steinkamp’s “Swoosh” brought light to the top of the Intuit Dome itself, multicolored lights installed into the skin of the roof — that will illuminate the town at night.
Zucker called the roof of the arena Steinkamp’s canvas and the lights embedded in it, the artist’s pigment.
Refik Anadol created the “Living Arena,” an artificial intelligence LED sculpture at the backdrop of the outdoor community basketball court that displays data in constantly changing images like live weather, Clippers’ stats and more.
Patrick Martinez’s “Same Boat” is a neon sign that reads: “We may all have come on different ships, but we are in the same boat now.”
The message of humanity in the glowing words reflects a common visual in the L.A. melting pot, said art consultant Ruth Berson, one that’s seen in every mom-and-pop store in strip malls around the Southland.
Finally, there’s “Spring to Life,” by Kyungmi Shin, a vertical mural made of stained glass, with silhouettes of basketball players traced in steel over a depiction of the Centinela Springs, the now-vanished water source in South L.A. that once supported the Indigenous Tongva people and the land they cultivated, shining a light on the layers of human experience embedded in the new arena’s site.
For Berson, who led the effort to commission and install the art — which took three years of discussion, planning, fabrication and coordination with Inglewood — seeing the pieces go from vision to reality was exciting, she said.
“We decided early on to create something meaningful for the community,” Berson said. “We looked for artists who were specifically perfect for this opportunity. It wasn’t a competition; it was an invitation.”
Thursday’s preview also highlighted a seventh, forthcoming commission by Charles Gaines: “Numbers and Trees,” a three-part acrylic sheet, painting and photograph that will be unveiled at a future date.
Portraits of Clippers players, photographed by Glen Luchford, will also line an indoor space in the arena, as well as photographs from Catherine Opie’s “The Mini-mall” series, which documents L.A. architecture.
Thursday showcased the Intuit Dome’s architectural beginnings as well, with a photo of the original sketch of the stadium’s design by Walter J. Hood and the city edition court and uniforms designed by Jonas Wood.
Attendees on Thursday also got a taste of the concessions that will be sold during Clippers games and concerts — including soft pretzels, popcorn, chocolate chip cookies and cups of fresh fruit — and a peek inside the arena itself. The arena boasts a 38,375 square feet of digital canvas called a halo display — a new version of the Jumbotron.
Mars, an eclectic and immensely popular singer-songwriter, will christen the venue with a two-night run on Aug. 15 and 16.
But plenty more entertainment is already planned, with pop star Olivia Rodrigo gracing the stage later in August, Usher performing in September and Weezer stopping by in October during the band’s Voyage to the Blue Planet 30th anniversary tour.
When the Clippers open the 2024-25 season at Intuit Dome, it will mark their first time with a home other than Crypto.com Arena — which they had shared with their intracity rivals, the Lakers — since the 1998-99 campaign, their last in the former LA Memorial Sports Arena. The NBA has not released the schedule for the 2024-25 season.
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