Having long played second fiddle to the Los Angeles Lakers, the neighboring Clippers are finally getting a home to call their own. An ambitious $2b USD home called the Intuit Dome. Nestled directly south of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, the 18,000 seat arena looks to be a marquee sports and music destination within the U.S. in the coming years, boasting the latest in cutting-edge technology, as well as a suite of specially commissioned artworks from some of the leading contemporary figures today. For the opening of Intuit, six artworks have been created on the exterior of the building, from murals and sculptures to digital installations.
LA-based artist Glenn Kaino tapped into the Clippers’ forgotten history for his sculptural installation, Sails. Unbeknownst to most fans, the LA Clippers were founded in 1970 as the Buffalo Braves. The team decided to move out west after a series of legal disputes with the neighboring Canisius Golden Griffins over the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, eventually landing in San Diego in 1978 and again heading up north to Los Angeles in 1984. Inspired by the Clippers new rebrand, Kaino created a ship whose wooden beams are each basketball courts with varying shapes, colors and graphics.
“I was inspired by the idea that basketball is such a wind behind cultural sails,” Kaino told the New York Times. “I thought about honoring the global connectivity of basketball and also the delightful ingenuity that people have in their determination to play.”
Glowing nearby is a neon sign by Patrick Martinez, another son of the city, whose poignant works probe into cultural loss, as well as social and civic injustices. Entitled Same Boat, Martinez echoes the words of civil rights activist Whitney M. Young: “We may have all come on different ships but we’re in the same boat now.” Just adjacent to Martinez’ signage is a larger wall work by South Korean artist Kyungmi Shin, entitled Spring to Life, which looks to honor Inglewood’s basketball community — serving as “a reminder of the past and a hope for the future,” she said in a statement.
No stranger to massive installations, Turkish artist Refik Anadol presents Living Arena, which extends extends 40 x 70 feet across the building and feature’s a continually changing façade that shifts in color and texture through machine learning. Orbiting nearby Andadol’s video work is a gestural mural by Michael Massenburg, whose Cultural Playground “celebrates our community’s culture, from the drumming, singing, and dancing to the energy of kids running at the local park.”
American new media artist Jennifer Steinkamp lights the Intuit Dome a few notches further by programming the entire net-like encasing of the architecture to light up through five different animations. “It’s intriguing to make this building feel emotional,” Steinkamp added. “We’re pushing the limit here by animating the entire surface. When the Clippers win a game, the building becomes excited.”
The ambitious art initiative cost $11m USD thus far, and will continue to grow in the coming years. The Clippers’ Intuit Dome will officially open to the public on August 15, 2024.
