Shoulder Towers

I spotted this pair of sculptures on my way home from Target recently. They are on opposite sides of South Des Plaines St. on the north side of the Taylor St. intersection. I can't find any information about these on the City of Chicago or State of Illinois websites, even though they are located directly in front of the Illinois Department of Transportation Dan Ryan Field Office building. The two large metal frame-like structures are about 16 feet tall and painted in red oxide primer. They closely echo the lines of the skyline clearly visible to the northeast, particularly the looming Sears Tower. The Sears Tower, famously designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill to have smaller floors on the top of the tower and larger floors lower down, appears to consist of nine smaller columns ending at different heights as the bundle of towers rises, creating structural "shoulders." The two smaller tower armatures flanking south loop traffic here each consist of four rectangles of different heights and widths, set at slightly different angles on the brick concrete base, to reserve, as in rotation, a greater volume than their actual material occupies. In fact, from the street corner in front of the sculpture, the skyline recedes in the background, and the relatively small structure of metal lines feels almost monumental. It seems intended to serve as a monument to the well-known skyline vista of Chicago approached from the south on the Dan Ryan Expressway, as it easily recalls this familiar view to mind. However, the form and site of these sculptures reference the less visible infrastructure of the city, both the physical infrastructure--its buildings, bridges, roads and highways--and its geographical infrastructure--the areas of the city without historically significant architecture, neighborhoods where rents are affordable enough for warehouse spaces NOT to be converted into condominiums, where the surface of things is not always shiny stainless steel and clean, unblemished glass. In this city thousands of miles of streets full of houses and businesses of all kinds are visible from observation windows in buildings like the Sears Tower only as a vast, textured grid sprawling out from the designed origin point, 0,0, the epicenter of the city. Appropriately, then, these "shoulder towers" support the city's structure, being all but invisible from far away, blending easily into the texture of the grid. And, even up close, they still allow a view between or even through them to always see the city's looming beacons of business, the heads of industry in the forms of the Sears Tower, the John Hancock building, the Aeon building, The Trump Tower, etc. Those towers, though, all serve as their own monuments to money, the real infrastructure that builds and supports this, or any other city--head, shoulders, knees and toes.

Episodic

This large metal sculpture at the corner of Western and Grand is the 1996 "Episodic" by Josh Garber. It was installed in June, 2000 as a gift to the City of Chicago Public Art Collection from the West Loop Gate Community Organization. A green "City that Works" banner now flies from a light post near the sculpture identifying the area as the Kinzie Industrial Corridor. The neighborhood may have been renamed or reorganized at some point recently, though it doesn't seem to have done much good in terms of retaining lessees, as there are no fewer than four "available" signs for commercial properties within sight of the corner. There are plenty of street lights and traffic light standards at the intersection, which makes the material of the sculpture seem particularly fitting for this kind of location. It is made of reused sections of discarded metal light poles, welded together as a meandering scribble, or "pretzel" on a small island between the main part of Grand and a right turn lane leading to southbound Western Ave. This sculpture was part of a coordinated effort by the City of Chicago Public Art Department, under the directorship of Michael Lash, to use such "concrete triangle" spaces as artistic gateways between neighborhoods, or as "streetscape oas[e]s," in the words of the artist, according to a Sun-Times article the week of its installation. At the time, a local business owner suggested the sculpture should be painted brown with white spots to look even more like a pretzel. It was black at the time of its installation, but was painted light blue shortly afterwards, and with the excusable exception of a few patches of rust, it remains "City of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, Mayor Blue" to this day. The color, like the sculpture, is both institutional and industrial, but still almost cheery, especially on a bleak, cloudy day like today. It proclaims itself urban and tough, but with a slight smile and a wink to let you know it's only acting. Acting like a precise and smoothly running machine, acting like a supporting structure that gives light to the dark streets, acting like a line that is going somewhere, a path with an end. But there is no end, the line meanders but then completes itself, a circuitous entry marker to another neighborhood in the city that works.

Angel of Halsted

I couldn't find any information about these cast concrete relief sculptures at the corner of Halsted St. and Division St. across from the Philips Towing yard. I only just noticed them a couple weeks ago, even though I have driven, biked or walked by the intersection probably a hundred times in the last few years. The first couple times I noticed them I assumed they were remnants of architectural decorative elements, but I couldn't see them very well behind the vines and bushes as I drove past. When I approached them on foot to look more closely, I was surprised by their subject matter and contextual details. The faded paint, crumbling bases, and overgrown state indicate they've been there for some time. They probably date from before the Cabrini Green complex began to be dismantled in favor of the many current "mixed income" townhouses in the area. There are three separate reliefs in front of a green metal fence on the southeast corner of the intersection. The relief on the right depicts an auburn-haired angel kneeling to place a plant into a hole in the ground in front of an overgrown chain-link fence with the Chicago skyline in the background. I wonder if the real fence behind the relief was chain-link when the sculptures were placed here. In the distance I could see the Hancock Tower and the Sears Tower through the fog, along with the rapidly rising Trump Tower, which is obviously missing from this earlier, condensed skyline in the upper right of the sculpture. The angel seems to belong to this site not only because of these background details, but because the plant she is gently lowering almost blends into the surrounding thick bushes and vines, and her gesture imbues this small patch of exposed earth amidst a world of concrete with the power to grow. If the angel on the right instills hope for a greener future, the dog on the left panel seems despondent even amidst the lush overgrowth. He looks to be standing next to a mature version of the plant the angel has planted, with another plant on the smaller panel next to him sprouting out of the ground. The dog is in fact positioned to be facing the angel, though his posture indicates an attitude more resigned to a fate of urban blight than one of spiritual and botanical renewal. He is sitting, slightly hunched, giant ears hanging limp, eyes and nose just downcast enough to project the hangdog air of an animal contained within a cage or fenced enclosure with no opening to freedom. These two panels are counterpoints to one another, and provide a realistic picture of a neighborhood with common urban problems. Is the angel a harbinger of nature's return, or rather of gentrification, planting seeds of Dominick's and Blockbuster and REI? Is the dog forever imprisoned here, or will he escape the concrete jungle, only to be trapped anew elsewhere for a time, then moved again and again in favor of still "greener" pastures? When and where will he find his forever home, and what angel can possibly guide and guard him there?

Lakeshore Sculpture Exhibit

After seeing "You Can't Keep a Down Man Good" I went looking for more of the pieces featured in the Lakeshore Sculpture Exhibit (LSE). I found a few, most of them located on former sites of Lincoln Park Community Art Initiative (LPCAI) public sculpture contest winners. That initiative, begun by 43rd Ward Alderman Vi Daley, lasted about 5 years, from 2002-2006, and exhibited work of 10 artists per year, with a number of repeat exhibitors. Some of the sculptures from the LPCAI are still installed, including this "Renaissance Man" at Burton and Wells by Boban Ilic from the 2003 exhibit. Many of the remaining LPCAI sculptures have been replaced recently by sculptures in the LSE, like this "Water" by Michael Young, sponsored by the Old-Town Triangle Association near Clark and Wisconsin St. at the edge of the park. It's a brushed aluminum sculpture of intertwined flat strips in a curved configuration about 9 feet tall. It resembles the surrounding trees more than it does water, and even calls to mind the way wind might move through gaps in the branches. I'm not sure why it is titled "Water" or why it is placed in this particular place. Many of the LSE sculptures seem plopped down on their respective sites without consideration of the characteristics of the exact location. "Moment" by Thomas Scharff at the corner of Lincoln and Fullerton and "Abduction" by Ron Gard at Wells and Burton are examples of this plop art problem as well. The artists didn't know where/if their sculptures would be displayed when they made them. When the site locations for groups of sculptures are chosen by a contest jury, neighborhood association or alderman's committee it can present problems for the way each sculpture interacts with its space, and the way the public interacts (or doesn't) with a sculpture. Then again, it could make for a more interesting public art, to open up the process (concept> construction> selection> installation> reception) to the public. If the public can actually participate at any point in this process, the sculpture can be more meaningful to that particular public. However, in the case of the LSE this effective perpetuation of the Modernist "plop art" model by parties more interested in conveying a neighborhood's wealth through culture than in truly engaging a public in meaningful art is counterproductive to an effective urban public sculpture, distilling out as it does anything that could potentially be deemed controversial, offensive, dangerous, ugly, or even thought-provoking. What is the purpose of putting these studio sculptures out into the public arena? Is there a way to contextualize a sculpture post-production into an urban environment? Is site-specificity important to our city's neighborhoods, or are chambers of commerce and aldermanic offices more concerned with simply having art displayed IN their districts than having art made FOR their people?

You Can't Keep a Down Man Good

I had a little trouble finding this Lincoln Park sculpture near the corner of Lincoln Park West and Clark St. It's nestled into a little grassy knoll just off the street, with tall trees on three sides. The recent street construction made the sculpture all but invisible, flanked on the only open side as it was by orange barriers and big yellow earth movers. In fact, the orange metal sculpture looked like part of the construction activity: a spare crane arm or piece of metal waiting to be installed underground. In fact, it is but part of a much larger sculpture exhibition. From the blue plaque on the concrete base, I learned it is one of twenty public sculptures on display as part of the Lakeshore Sculpture Exhibit (LSE) sponsored by the Mid-North Neighborhood Association. All the sculptures will be on sale at the conclusion of the exhibition in spring of 2009. Should I assume that money goes back to the private sources from which the funding came? I'll show you more of this exhibition in next week's entry.
A close inspection of the piece found the title inscribed on the base of the metal, "You Can't Keep a Down Man Good." The reversed maxim has an ominous, vaguely threatening implication, especially coming from what by name seems to be a Native American artist. Is Ted Sitting Crow Garner saying that the "Down Man" (oppressed? depressed?) will by necessity (or will) resort to "Bad" (violent? corrupt? self-destructive?) behavior? And what does the orange metal machine-arm-like structure have to do with his statement? Should the rich and the white be wary of the tools of the construction trade as potential instruments of their demise? Will the luxury living units along Chicago's north lakeshore fall to the malicious intent of a bulldozer or a crane, or will their homes, landscaping, roads and signs just continue to be immaculately improved year after year by members of the working class struggling to feed their families? Tell will time.

Tomb Fragments Towers

After learning about the deathly history of south Lincoln Park through the Hidden Truths project, I started looking more closely at the ground, the roads, the trees, and the people in the park. I imagined all sorts of possible resting (and restive) places for bygone Chicagoans. Along one path near N. Clark St. and Wisconsin St. I saw a scattered assortment of very old fragments of stone and concrete. Some still had remnants of decorative carvings, possibly part of a cornice or other adornment to a tomb or monument long since crumbled and forgotten. I wondered if these had just been dug up in a recent lawn improvement or path repaving, or if they had simply been sitting there where I found them for a hundred and fifty years. I wondered how many people like me had passed by them...if any of those people could have been related to the people whose monument these fragments once were. To whom do those rocks belong? I circled back by the rocks on my way home, and on an impulse, stacked them up in two towers, making new memorials to the unknown, unknowable past they lived. The lawn suddenly looked different. It was more peaceful, more settled. I hope more people find meaning now in the short stacks of old rocks as they walk around, breathing in the crisp air of autumn, alive and un-haunted by the ghosts of Lincoln Park. For now.

Hidden Truths

Hidden Truths is a two-part project by artist Pamela Bannos, including site-specific and web-based components. It was funded by Northwestern University, where Bannos is a senior lecturer in the Department of Art Theory and Practice. She recently did extensive research into the history of the southern section of Lincoln Park, which is the site of the now defunct Chicago City Cemetery and the Catholic Cemetery. In the 1850s-60s the city resolved to cease interments along the lake shore, move the existing burials to "suburban" plots (now Rosehill, Graceland and Oak Woods Cemeteries) and establish a park, renamed in 1865 in memory of recently assassinated Lincoln. There are several of these painted aluminum signs around the park, commemorating historical figures and events surrounding the cemetery sites. Please check out the Hidden Truths website for tons of interesting information, interviews and images of all the signs, maps, and much more... After seeing two of the signs and reading all about the project on the website, my understanding of the park has profoundly changed. As it turns out, not all the skeletal remains of people buried in what is now Lincoln Park were removed. In fact, many remains have been found over the years in various phases of construction and renovation of the park grounds, the Chicago History Museum and the surrounding neighborhood. The awareness of this history, and of the possibility of human remains beneath my feet as I casually stroll through the park imbues my walk with a new sense of poignancy. The pristine green lawns and lush landscaping are nourished by lives long decayed and forgotten. The back yard of the city's elite still has secrets skeletons to reveal, and stories to tell. In honor of those stories, I'll dedicate my next few entries to those who remain below the ground as I focus on more public sculpture in Lincoln Park.

Alicia Frantz

I drive by this memorial installation on Division St. under the Kennedy Expressway viaduct all the time. There are a number of these bikes-as-memorials of bikers killed in traffic on the city streets in Chicago. This one was recently refreshed with a clean coat of white paint and new fabric flowers. The bike, chained to the railing of the walkway under the north side of the viaduct, commemorates the death of Alicia Frantz on June 3, 2005, her 32nd birthday. I presume it was the bike she was riding when she was killed, but I'm not sure. Under her name and dates of birth and death is the epitaph "She heard everyday sounds as music." As I recently strained to catch a picture of the memorial with my cell phone as traffic moved forward into a green light, I flashed on a driver, a once-careless driver, someone like I was in that moment... A driver who has been driving for a long time, and sometimes takes for granted a certain amount of space around his/car that serves as the only buffer for swerves or strays, slow-stops or quick-starts... A driver who neglects to check a blind spot, a driver who sneezes, or a driver with the sun in his/her eyes... Maybe a driver using a cell phone... A driver who somehow, for some reason, for any reason, doesn't see the diminutive bicyclist in the road until she is already fallen. But the driver does hear a sound. Not an everyday sound, not music, but a sound too quickly muffled to be fully comprehended at first. A sound with a startling, pulse-quickening attack, and a silent sustain that never ends. I keep imagining the sound of metal and flesh, bone and asphalt, and the vocal chords of Alicia Frantz vibrating for the last time. The thought of that sound keeps me more alert when driving now, not on the cell phone, glasses always on, blind spots double-checked, blinkers utilized correctly, and buffer space respected. I don't want to be that driver. I don't want to hear that sound.

Elevators

"Elevator" by Mike Baur is a public sculpture commission awarded by the Lincoln Park Community Art Initiative in 2005, with sponsorship from General Iron. General Iron has a large scrap-iron processing facility less than one block away from the site of this piece at the corner of Marcey and Clifton, between the swank of the Lincoln Park stretch of Clybourn St. shopping district and the stank of the North River industrial corridor (no river walks here, folks). There is a steady stream of trucks, both semi- and stake-side, in and out of the scrap facility, bringing a strange and eclectic procession of objects, all bound for a giant shredder. The various metal objects, from cyclone fences and bedsprings to old cars and I-beams, are lifted onto conveyor belts and moved around the facility by big yellow crane-arms that resemble the arm on the sculpture. However, the dynamic power of the working machinery inside the yard is far more interesting than the stagnant stuff called art sitting on a low, shimmied pedestal on the corner. The energy inside the iron facility is both destructive and creative, breaking down once manufactured objects into a reconfigurable substance, which will in its turn be made into something useful, like, say cyclone fences and bedsprings, new cars and I-beams...Somehow, standing there witnessing part of that cycle of steel I came to imagine how a 1960 viewer of Jean Tinguely's "Homage to New York," the metamatic sculpture that self-destructed in front of the MOMA, must have felt. Awed and critical: Awed at the enormity, the audacity, the expectable spectacle; Critical of the flaws--flaws in the actual process/performance of the thing you are witnessing, and, more importantly, the flaws in the beings who created the system that kills itself. The longer I stood there, the more the scene became a strangely unreal, digitally animated, post-apocalyptic scene from Pixar's Wall-E. But the people in the trucks and cranes were not. They were alive, now, today, Chicagoans at work. Finally, I walked back over to "Elevator." Now I see it for what it is: a prediction. It's one artist's formal play with metal and concrete parts resembling machinery, yes, but it's also a prediction that someday, the strong yellow crane arms will all seize up and rust. The energy that runs the cycle of steel today will cease its machinations, kill itself, and by its very existence, commemorate its own death...
I wondered where the people in the trucks and cranes will be.

Breathe Oxygen

Here is a little-known public sculpture I noticed today in Humboldt Park. It's a larger-than-life concrete snail (about 4 feet long, 2 feet tall) nestled in a strip of garden on the south-eastern edge of the lagoon, behind a black metal railing. On the side of the snail are etched the words "breathe oxygen," possibly the title of the piece, or an exhortation to passers-by to enjoy the fresh air of the green surroundings. At first, this piece seemed to be a simple garden figure; a slow muncher of leaves amidst a peaceful garden to be enjoyed by all. However, a consideration of the existence of this particular form in this particular place suggests a surprisingly political undertone. On closer inspection, we can see that the snail is actually wearing a human mask. The eyes are closed as though sleeping, jaw jutting forward, mouth poised to exhale. The face resembles some Mayan masks. The neighborhoods around Humboldt Park have a significant population of Puerto Rican and Mexican Americans, so with the appearance of the mask, I wondered if there weren't something significant, something symbolic about this snail. It turns out the snail is one of the important symbols of the EZLN, a revolutionary group historically based in Chiapas, Mexico, but spread throughout Mexico, Latin America and even gone global through adept use of the internet. According to Wikipedia, the EZLN ideology combines aspects of socialism, anarchism, libertarianism and indigenous Mayan political thought, though now the group aligns itself with a general resistance to globalization and native peoples' claims to local lands and resources. For the EZLN, the snail is a symbol of their method of organizing, el caracol--the organization is said to spiral and grow like the shell of the snail. Images of snails appear on EZLN shirts, posters, embroidery and murals, sometimes wearing the black mask the EZLN fighters have worn since their 1994 uprising, which was timed in protest of the NAFTA. After reading this, I began to think of the snail sculpture in Humboldt Park as a sleeping sign of the potential for revolution in unexpected places. Alexander Von Humboldt, after whom the park was named, is one of the most revered minds in science, having contributed hundreds of discoveries, publications, and inventions to many different disciplines of science. In fact, he even invented a device to measure the ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide in air, for use in studies of altitude sickness and plant respiration. Perhaps the inscription, "breathe oxygen" could be a reference to Humboldt's device or his studies. It could be a simple reminder that people of native cultures didn't need European scientists and technology to tell them humans can breathe better where there is an abundance of plants. Much of Humboldt's groundbreaking work came during his noted travels through Latin America. He wrote extensively about the natural wonders of the new world, but often ignored the importance of the native people already inhabiting the areas he studied. These facts connected in my mind the snail as a symbol to its particular location in Humboldt Park, and I started to think of this green patch of ground and water not just as a place for a leisurely stroll and breath of fresh air, but as an environment surrounded by concrete, but nonetheless fecund in its potential to produce oxygen, and along with it perhaps, even revolution?

To Communicate

Here is another public sculpture by local artist Jerzy Kenar. "To Communicate" was installed in 2005 and dedicated by Mayor Daley. It is located at the Hans Christian Andersen Community Academy (elementary school) on Division St. between Honore and Wolcott. While the title, location, and basic form seem to speak to the technology of communication (the form evokes a telegraph or transistor contact) as it relates to education, there is a problem with the scale in this understanding of the piece. The large ceramic mound takes on a figural reference (a lump of clay to become a man?) with metal coils encircling where the nascent figure's head would be. The form at this size (about 8 feet tall) becomes a Frankenstein about to be shocked to life (or to death--it could be an electric chair). I'm left with the feeling that this sculpture monumentalizes a more torturous process than communication. Maybe some teachers feel like communication (and education, by site extension) must be forced into the lump-of-clay noggins of their students like electrons through a copper coil, but for the sake of Andersen students I hope this is not the educational philosophy ascribed to there. Do you think the artist meant to evoke a device of torture, death or revivification with this sculpture, or is it merely an electrical contact of communication made grossly large for the sake of being easily seen by people in passing cars?

Shit Fountain

The Shit Fountain was installed on private (but highly visible) property at Wolcott and Augusta in East Village in 2005 by artist Jerzy Kenar, who owns the building at 1001 N. Wolcott and the adjoining garage/studio. The neighborhood's many dog walkers (of whom I am now proudly one) are reminded to scoop up their dog's piles by this monumental pile of bronze shit with gently flowing water. A mainly drunk and stoned late-night crowd can often be seen mirthfully appreciating/cellphotographing the fountain on their way from bar to neighborhood bar and stumbling home. This simple but nicely executed garden fountain/sculpture is a neighborhood icon, and a topic of websites of all kinds, from giant to tiny, blogs and photo albums, from flickr, myspace and youtube to realfanshitonly, yelp and casadepunk. I can only say that it's my favorite neighborhood art (I live two blocks away) so I always take out-of-towners to see it, to mixed reactions. At least there's always a reaction, though, which is more than I can say about lots of blander art in public that I (and my visitors) see around.

Oz Park

This summer I stumbled on a northside Chicago park with several public sculptures made by John Kearney from 1995-2007. The sculptures in the park were paid for by a partnership of public (Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce) and private ( Oz Park Advisory Council) founders. In 1995 the Oz Park Advisory Council commissioned the Yellow Brick Road installation of paths through the park, beginning to shape the theme that would crystallize over the next 12 years with the intermittent installation of four sculptures, all characters from the 1939 MGM masterpiece, The Wizard of Oz. The main entrance to Oz Park seems to be the yellow brick plaza on the intersection of Webster, Larrabee and Lincoln Ave. Passers-by see the Tin Man sculpture pictured here. Other entrances to the park sport sculptures of Dorothy with Toto and The Cowardly Lion, while the Scarecrow is on a interior path opening, aptly near the garden area of the park. The park also has a verdant playfield and state-of-the art children's playground. The residential areas around the park are patrolled by calm processions of mothers and nannies with modestly pimped-out carriages. The occasional young couple or single pedestrian walk right by the park, the local businesses rather than the wonderland of Oz having most probably attracted them to this corner. However, the mothers and nannies and children seem drawn to them. I see a few groups milling around the lion, meeting up with friends. Several strollers linger by the Dorothy with Toto sculpture, perhaps drawn in by the sparkling slippers. The sculptures take a very traditional figural monument form, but are monuments, as it were, to a fantasy, a cine-fied version of the world in which Dorothy (somewhere...) is a figure of historical importance. This displacement of the significant historical figure with one of cinematographic importance reinforces the dominant cultural paradigm. That is, what we see on television and in movies both reflects and dictates what we think is important. If the reproduction rights of contemporary children's movies weren't so heavily guarded, this could easily have been Finding Nemo Park. They would have needed a founding wizard to fund a gift store as well. Perhaps the bronze Wizard of Oz characters here serve to memorialize the way kids' movies (and lives) used to be...Before characters in Disney movies began to be sold in McDonald's Happy Meals before the movie is even released...Before Wicked's Original Broadway Cast Recording was released on itunes...Before children's leisure time was consumed by live virtual (oxymoron?) combat on PSP...a time when you as a child were content with a stroll in a quiet, simple, pristine green, neighborhood park with a view of bronze sculpture, trees, and your mother, nanny, or your Auntie Em. Remember? It was a long time ago.