The Fighting Yank

I spotted this aggresive sculpture while strolling on Devon Avenue recently. "The Spirit of the Fighting Yank" by Harry A. Cooper is a life-sized bronze figure on a high pedestal protected by an iron picket enclosure. The figure, a fully geared army soldier, is striding forward, about to lob a live grenade with his taut right arm, staring out intently at his target. The figure is located at the corner of Devon Avenue and Fairfield in Chicago's "Little India" neighborhood, outside of Republic Bank, this branch of which is housed in a brick colonial-style building inspired by Independence Hall in Philadelphia, site of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the original home of the Liberty Bell. It is especially significant, then that the plaque on the Yank's black granite base reads "Lest We Forget They Died...That We Can Live in Independence." The dedication date is May 30, 1958, the same day that unidentified veterans from WWII and The Korean War were interred at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery. Unlike most other memorials to war veterans, though, this figure is frozen in a perpetual pose of impending violence, suggesting that there is no restful peace for the dead of wars. This violent posture is particularly disturbing given that the figure's apparent target, identified by his line of sight, is the street sign for Devon Avenue at the corner, above which is the city placard identifying this section of the street as memorial "Gandhi Marg [Way]." The threat of violence as a remembrance of independence is, of course, the antithesis of Gandhi's way. So, every August when thousands of people process down Devon Avenue celebrating Indian Independence Day, the disconnect between militaristic patriotic fervor and the true spirit of independence is most acute. There must be a reason there is a protective iron fence around this sculpture, but this year, hardly any of the apparently peace-loving paraders of Indian origin and descent even glanced at the fighting Yank. His grip on the grenade, though, never loosened.

Green Misleadership

This globe sculpture by Jonathan Franklin is titled "Garden Variety." It is located in front of the Exelon (formerly Commonwealth Edison) Chicago North Regional Headquarters on N. California Ave. at Addison St. and is one of very few remnants of the "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet" project in 2007. The original series of fiberglass globes were decorated by various artists and displayed for much of 2007 in the area between the Field Museum and Balbo Drive along the lakefront, with another group installed on the lawn west of Navy Pier. Several "teasers" like this one, were installed around the city, though not with the same city-wide pervasiveness of the "Cows on Parade" of 1999, which reportedly inspired this project. This globe depicts a lush urban garden on the slick surface of the 5-foot diameter orb, and is mounted on a concrete platform next to the main company sign in front of the building, serving in a way as a dimensional corporate logo. It should be noted that Exelon, based in Chicago, is a company that heavily markets itself as providing a "greener" or more sustainable future in energy, as the presence of this globe and the accompanying plaque, lauding the city of Chicago's "Green Leadership" suggest. However, even a cursory look at Exelon's practices reveals fundamental contradictions. For example, their television, print and web campaign to promote the diversity of sources of energy generation they promote, including renewables (The Exelon website front page is filled with windmills) is betrayed by their own pie chart showing the distribution of their sources as being 92% Nuclear, and only 2% renewable sources. Not much diversity, let alone sustainability there...The public debate on the "cleanliness" of nuclear energy rages on, but among real environmental activists (not energy providers) it is widely believed that nuclear energy is extremely harmful to the environment despite its lower carbon emissions relative to fossil fuel sources... Most of us remember Chernobyl, or even Three-Mile Island, which is now owned by Exelon, not to mention all the slightly less catastrophic examples of nuclear waste causing environmental hazards. Exelon had another recent scandal in Pennsylvania, in which it waited four years to reveal that tritium (radioactive hydrogen) had leaked into groundwater. And what happens to all the spent fuel rods and radioactive waste from nuclear energy generation? Can we keep burying it in concrete and metal, putting it in mountains or under the ocean? Maybe we can embed it into the fiberglass used to make these "Cool Globes." Then we wouldn't have to use the electricity required to light them at night. They would glow from within---Hey, even greener!

Westtown Cowboy

This cowboy on Chicago Ave. is a beacon to shoppers looking to buy authentic western clothing and accessories at the iconic Alcala's Western Wear, a true family business and neighborhood institution for 37 years. He is seen here rearing up on his horse atop the "Alcala's Parking" sign across the street from the retail store, right next to one of the recently posted "WESTtown" neighborhood banners on a lamppost. The fiberglass horse and rider have been suspended in this "lone-ranger" state of rearing and waving for years, while the red and yellow banner is a relatively new marker of a neighborhood in transition. Alcala's claims to be a little bit of the lonestar state in the heart of the midwest. The storefront of the business across the street boasts another horse (sans rider) on the sign, one on the sidewalk, and a smaller, mechanized one inside the store, available for visitors to ride for a quarter. Ironically, the "Westtown" sign, which seen pointing at the cowboy here seems to indicate that this neighborhood is "western," actually points to the fact that real estate interests have gentrified this neighborhood as a southern extension to the inexorable condo and boutique progression from lincoln park to bucktown to wicker park and now to westtown. In fact, there are many fewer gentlemen strolling this neighborhood in the western garb sold at Alcala's than there were 5 years ago. There are more hipsters and yuppies to be sure, though, on their way to the brand new Dominick's down the street, or to any number of new bars and boutique shops along Chicago Ave. Alcala's is still there, as are some of the cheap clothing and furniture stores that have populated this strip for years. The cowboy on Chicago still rides high, though his neon outline is out of gas. He may be too before too long.

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?

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.