For years, a graceful aluminum and iron mobile by Alexander Calder has been suspended over the air-side central atrium at Pittsburgh International Airport.

The work, titled Pittsburgh, was originally designed for a Carnegie Institute exhibition in 1958 and was moved to the airport in 1959. Except for a stint at the Carnegie Museum of Art during the construction of the current terminal, the mobile has been greeting travelers at PIT ever since.

Soon, though, the Calder will be taking a trip: the airport has agreed to loan the mobile to the Palazzo delle Esposizioni museum in Rome for a Calder exhibit they’re hosting in the winter of 2009.

So catch the Calder before it flies away. The Calder exhibit in Rome is scheduled to run from February through May 2009.

Photo Courtesy Pittsburgh International Airport

I’m tickled to be doing a guest stint this week and next writing the Airport Check-In column over at USA TODAY.

This week’s topics include the re-freshed exhibits at the American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and, for those celebrating “Won’t You Be My Neighbor Days” a reminder that there’s a Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood exhibit at Pittsburgh International Airport.

Photo: Family Communications