Artist: Renée Petropoulos
Terminal 2/3, Departures Level, pre-security
In the late 1990s Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation commissioned a painting by Los Angeles artist Renée Petropoulos for the lobby of Building 100 on the Fox Studio Lot on Pico Boulevard, West Los Angeles. Petropoulos responded to the commission by creating a non-figurative, narrative artwork that considered the historical role that art patronage played in art production. The patron of Petropoulos’s work, which she titled Just What Is Your Position, was Fox News Corp., the corporation that owned Twentieth Century Fox at that time, and its president, Rupert Murdoch.
The artist alludes to both the nature of a viewer’s perception, and the norms of corporate culture in the painting. The elliptical shape relates to the shape of human vision as well as to the standardized shape of a corporate logo. The source material of the painting, Fox News Corps.’ extensive holdings and business philosophy, become its visual components, alongside representations of power and scope, including historical renditions of planetary orbits, the growth patterns of plants, the intricacies of private document seals, and global reach vis-á-vis color (flags of nations).
The various patterns of these elements are woven together and layered to create a sense of movement and disorientation, including scale shifts and an emphasis on fragmentation, producing a multi-centered composition.
The original siting of this work at Fox Studios Lot invited the viewer to walk the length of the painting, as it could not fully be seen all at one time, making movement and vantage point integral to the concept and experience of the painting.
Considering the site, both in terms of location and situation, is central to Petropoulos’ work. Relocating this painting 24 years after its creation and installation posed a challenge. To the artist, the location at LAX proves to be ideal, as it both brings the history of the painting to a new setting, and reveals additional meanings in its new site, including the light effect from the windows that echoes the diagonal element that crosses the width of the painting – a diagonal that mirrored the staircase traversing the original space, which was removed weeks before the painting was installed at Fox Studios. A sense of object memory is present and continues within the terminal’s new grand entrance space.
Petropoulos is known for work that comments on both public and private space and the intersection between them. Re-siting the work to a location with this degree of visibility allows for a dynamic exchange between architecture and human scale. The constructs within the painting, the representational characteristics of the seen and unseen as they are mapped, acknowledges our presence in this space of transition.
About the Artist
Renée Petropoulos has created projects and exhibited internationally. Her work has been featured in numerous institutions and galleries including the Hammer Museum; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; MARTE San Salvador; Beijing MOCA; the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery; and MACO Oaxaca to name a few. She has performed pieces at Commonwealth and Council, the MAK center, and Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles.
In 2019, Petropoulos received a Santa Monica Artist Fellowship and an IASPIS International Grant; served as the artist in residence at the Palm Springs Museum of Art as well as at 18th Street Arts Center with Arturo Hernandez of Oaxaca, Mexico; and was included in the Bosnia Herzegovina Biennale. She has received numerous grants including a COLA Fellowship, Getty Grant, California Arts Council grant and Ford Fellowship among others. In 2020-2021 she had a solo exhibition at As-Is Gallery in Los Angeles.
Renée Petropoulos,
Just What Is Your Position, acrylic on plywood panels, 20 x 38 feet, 1996-1998
Renée Petropoulos, Just What Is Your Position, acrylic on plywood panels, 20 x 38 feet, 1996-1998 
Renée Petropoulos, Just What Is Your Position, acrylic on plywood panels, 20 x 38 feet, 1996-1998 
Renée Petropoulos, Just What Is Your Position, acrylic on plywood panels, 20 x 38 feet, 1996-1998 
Renée Petropoulos, Just What Is Your Position, acrylic on plywood panels, 20 x 38 feet, 1996-1998 
Renée Petropoulos, Just What Is Your Position, acrylic on plywood panels, 20 x 38 feet, 1996-1998 
Renée Petropoulos, Just What Is Your Position, acrylic on plywood panels, 20 x 38 feet, 1996-1998
Renée Petropoulos. Photo by Catherine Opie
Renée Petropoulos. Photo by Catherine Opie
Renée Petropoulos. Photo by Catherine Opie
Renée Petropoulos, Just What Is Your Position, acrylic on plywood panels, 20 x 38 feet, 1996-1998 
Renée Petropoulos, Just What Is Your Position, archival photo from 1997, courtesy of the artist
Renée Petropoulos, Just What Is Your Position, archival photo from 1997, courtesy of the artist 
Renée Petropoulos, Just What Is Your Position, archival photo from 1997, courtesy of the artist Photos courtesy of SKA Studios LLC. Click image to zoom.
