LAX Gives Exposure to a Double Standard

Kevin Otos and his family were hustling for their plane to Oklahoma when they trampled the bodies of three naked men at Los Angeles International Airport.

I stopped Otos and asked what he thought of the images on the granite floor of the American Airlines terminal.

“This is it?” he asked with surprise.

Otos had read Times reporter Jennifer Oldham’s story about bashful airport officials temporarily dressing the newly commissioned work in brown paper. The paper was removed recently for news photographers and never put back.

“I wouldn’t even have known this was the controversial art until you pointed it out,” Otos said.

His wife, Libby, came over with Hannah, 18 months, to have a closer look.

“It reminds me of Michelangelo,” Libby said.

This raises an interesting question. If David were at the airport, would he have to wear a pair of Nike running shorts or something?

Leonardo da Vinci was actually her inspiration, artist Susan Narduli told me as we watched people react to her two-year project. I had arranged for Narduli, the chief of American Airlines at LAX and an airport official to meet at the site and see if we could get this thing resolved.

The city Cultural Affairs Commission is supposed to weigh in Thursday, but I don’t know if we can wait that long. What if, as those fast-acting bureaucrats feared, young minds are being irreparably warped?

As for the nude men, you can’t see their actual goods. Some very tasteful shading takes care of that. You can, however, see a buttock or two in one section, where man, ascendant, leaps for the heavens.

This could be interpreted as commentary on man’s desire to break free of mortal, earthbound limitations. Or it could be a frequent flier so fed up with chronic flight delays and terrible service, he’s decided to leap to his death.

Gabor George Hazy, the American Airlines boss at LAX, brought a two-page “Corporate Talking Points” memo with him to our impromptu meeting. So we know he was prepared.

Paul Haney, an LAX spokesman, said an airport employee did a double take when Narduli’s work was unveiled about a month ago. It was different enough from what the culture commission approved in 1999, Haney claims, that it was put under wraps.

“Well, I don’t find it offensive,” said Hazy, who was so sure of himself he folded up his Talking Points memo and handed it to me.

It was an uncommonly courageous stand for a company man. But then, on the cusp of becoming a champion of the arts, he caved.

If the Cultural Affairs Commission turns red with embarrassment, he said, American will have Narduli’s two-year project ripped out.

Narduli had no immediate response, but looked as though she needed a blood transfusion.

There was no bait-and-switch on her part, she says. There were unclothed men in her initial abstracts, and she insists the finished product is no great departure.

Brooke Allen, 19, and her sister, Alison, 17, stopped to see for themselves. “I like it,” said Brooke, “but it’s a little shocking.”

“I don’t know,” said the girls’ companion, who seemed even more skeptical.

And whom might you be? I asked.

“I’m the mother,” said Susan Nahkunst of Westlake. “I like the idea, but if my daughters were little, I’d have to explain why there were naked men there.”

It’s a take on man’s innate desire to soar with eagles, I said.

“Then they should put a quote here to explain it,” said Alison.

When they left, I passed on Alison’s suggestion to Narduli.

“Was she the one with the pierced navel?” Narduli asked.

Good point. When it comes to taste, whose standards do we use?

For instance, I had just seen a grown couple traipse by in matching pastel warmup suits. Maybe I’m the odd duck, but it met my standard of indecency.

I urged Hazy and Haney to do what they could for Narduli, and I wished her the best. But maybe the Cultural Affairs Commission should err on the side of decency. It is a public place, after all.

Before leaving the airport, I stopped by the newsstand in the American Airlines terminal to pick up a magazine. But so many headlines screamed and teased from the shelves, I couldn’t decide what to buy.

#1 For Nasty Action (Club International)

Survivor Jerri Nude (Playboy)

Women of the Sopranos Nude (High Society)

Variations for Liberated Lovers (Penthouse)

The Shocking Act 41% of You Have Tried (Cosmo)

Raised by Mary Poppins, Blake Edwards’ Granddaughter Unveils Her Pink Panther (Hustler)

Kind of hard to resist that last one, don’t you think?

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Steve Lopez can be reached at steve.lopez@latimes.com.