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.

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.

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.