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August 02, 2004

News Flash: New Public Art Manages not to Annoy, Pander or Condescend!

So Chicago's got a new plaza, or series of plazas. Millenium Park. And I just recently got my first look at one of the art installations there. It was described to me as "a fountain," but... wow. Super-inadequate.

This is a matching pair of giant monoliths made of glass bricks, with sheets of water cascading down the sides. There aren't any fences or signs; You're supposed to run around apeshit-style, splashing and screaming and what not. No one stops you.

The facing side of each monolith has a LED screen embedded behind the bricks, and it cycles about a thousand different images. Sometimes, it shows waterfalls or rainforest downpour scenes, or lakes. But the kids playing in the... uh, fountain... get really excited when one of a jillion random faces pops up on the screens. Because after maybe five or six minutes of staring, blinking, and smiling....

The faces do this.

Any public art that elicits screams of delight and wonder from five-year-olds every ten minutes is okay by me, no matter how creepy a three-story-tall child's face seems at first glance.

Apart from the face monoliths, there's also this giant chrome thing.

It has a classy, offical name, but most people call it The Bean. Three guesses why.

The Bean, apart from reminding entirely too many people of a certain spaceship from a certain sci-fi movie about a certain flight of a certain navigator, has a little secret. Walk into the arch, and look up, and...

Well, spend three minutes staring and jumping up and down and pointing, like everyone else around you.

Chicago rocks my ass so hard. I am never leaving.

Posted by Spike at August 2, 2004 10:52 PM

Comments

...damn, that's cool.

Posted by Dylan at August 3, 2004 12:31 AM
67.40.202.225

.... all we have is a giant clothespin and game peices.

Posted by Psychomelody at August 3, 2004 08:30 AM
141.151.21.50

That crummy last photo really just utterly fails to communicate what you see inside The Bean. You spend all your time in there trying to figure out the angle of every surface....

Posted by spike at August 3, 2004 10:05 AM
68.20.213.198

The monoliths are so ...Swedish!

I'm guessing they can cycle more and different images, too. BADASS.

Posted by Lea at August 3, 2004 02:08 PM
68.203.203.122

Neat! Isn't it nice when art is just... you know... cool?

Posted by spookable at August 3, 2004 04:43 PM
149.174.164.67

Hahah, I happened by that this weekend.Chi-town owns.

Posted by Rocket at August 3, 2004 04:57 PM
68.21.171.106

Psychomelody

You live in Philly, huh? You forgot about the LOVE statue, and the Broken Button on Penn's campus.

Then there's all the "collage" on South Street...

Philly art sucks.

I miss New York.

Posted by Rich at August 3, 2004 10:20 PM
141.151.95.107

Well... we also have the Kimmel Center... I had my graduation there. That place is fucking amazing.

And the liberty bell.... an long as homeless people stop trying to gong it.

Posted by Psychomelody at August 4, 2004 12:24 AM
141.151.21.50

Ok, that's it. I have to move to Chicago.

Posted by Sara at August 4, 2004 11:11 AM
147.136.254.248

I need to go see this.

Perhaps I should meet you guys downtown sometime soon.

Posted by dirk at August 4, 2004 11:30 AM
64.108.213.67

Sounds like a plan, Dirk. You've got my number....

Posted by spike at August 5, 2004 10:49 AM
68.20.213.198

Man all we've got down here in oz where i live is a Platapus made from scrap steel!
Not what you would call riveting.

Posted by Scoot at December 22, 2005 09:28 PM
202.144.183.217

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