Twenty-five years ago, it came to town, sat down in the Loop and hasn`t budged since, its stern gaze and perplexing beauty attracting the curious, the quizzical and the captivated. Nameless, it has been called an orangutan and an oracle, an anteater and an angel, but now, on the occasion of its 25th birthday, we mostly call it our own.
More than the scalloped edges of Marina City or the steep slope of the Hancock building, the graceful curves and brooding stare of the sculpture Pablo Picasso created for Chicago has become our symbol.
”It`s hard to think of Chicago without the Picasso now,” says Carlos Tortolero, 38, executive director of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, who stumbled onto its unveiling on his way to get his first pair of glasses at age 13. ”So in a way it has worked its magic.”
At 4:30 p.m. Friday, the Picasso will be decked in a 10-foot-wide, blue-and-yellow party hat, sit through a few rounds of ”Happy Birthday to You,” then fix its famous gaze as the big band boom of the Stanley Paul Orchestra, the swirl of Spanish dancers and crumbs of hundreds of birthday cakes sprinkle onto Daley Plaza.
Illinois Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks will read her poems to the sculpture. Art students will present a mural in its honor, a floating birthday card will bob under the Michigan Avenue bridge and that enigmatic face will deliver its single-eyed stare from store windows, T-shirts, coffee mugs, coloring books, scarves and cake tops.
The celebration, co-sponsored by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Mayor`s Office of Special Events, recaptures, in a more lighthearted fashion, the welcoming party staged on Aug. 15, 1967.
The beginning
Back then, the Daley Plaza was called the Civic Center Plaza, the mayor was named Richard J. Daley, and neither the city nor its officials were entirely prepared for the work of art that waited beneath a 50-foot-high blue veil.
Some 50,000 Chicagoans crowded into the plaza that morning, choking off traffic on Washington, Dearborn and Clark Streets. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra played Gershwin. Dignitaries, including William E. Hartmann, the architect who persuaded Picasso to create the sculpture for Chicago, were honored. A minister and a rabbi stood by for invocations. President Johnson sent a telegram.
”It was the place to be,” recalls Tom Palazzolo, 54, who teaches art at Daley College and filmmaking at the School of the Art Institute. Twenty-five years ago, he took his 16 mm camera and his sense of humor to the unveiling.
Just after 11:30 a.m., Mayor Daley pulled a white streamer that dropped the blue fabric covering the statue. The cover flowed down, snagged on the sculpture`s long steel nose, then rippled to the ground.
The unveiling
”There was a moment when people just gasped,” says Palazzolo. ”Then Daley started clapping, and everyone knew that it was all right.”
”We dedicate this celebrated work this morning with the belief that what is strange to us today will be familiar tomorrow,” the mayor said.
The crowd wanted to get familiar right away. Was it a baboon? An eagle? A rib cage? A joke? Or perhaps, as art historians contend, a cubist view of a woman, most likely Jacqueline, Picasso`s wife. Many stood in awe. Others expressed outrage.
Ald. John J. Hoellen (47th) suggested having the thing deported. As if anticipating the furor, Glendowlyn Brooks read a poem dedicated to the Picasso. It included the lines: ”We may touch or tolerate an astounding fountain, or a horse-and-rider. At most, another Lion.”
Art redefined
This was different. ”It really marked an aesthetic change to non-memorial art,” says Michael Lash, the city`s public art curator. ”In that regard it`s the first piece of public art for art`s sake.”
It led the way for dozens of public artworks, including the Miro and Chagall pieces now installed in the Loop. Brooks` poem was ready for the change: ”Art hurts. Art urges voyages-and it is easier to stay at home, the nice beer ready.”
But those disturbed by the work still reveled in the city`s newfound status. Even New York lacked a monumental Picasso. President Johnson`s telegram closed, ”You have demonstrated once again that Chicago is a city second to none.”
”The city really came together,” says Palazzolo, whose film about the unveiling, called ”The Bride Stripped Bare,” enjoyed a minor cult status.
”I think there was really a feeling of celebration, a new era. It was like being in Athens in the 5th Century just as they were putting up the Parthenon. There was a wonderful optimism, a feeling the culture in general would blossom, like we were entering a new and better phase.”
Picasso fever
Catching up with what Lash terms ”public lag,” the sculpture`s big eye and flowing mane soon found its way onto postcards and keychains, aided in part by a federal court decision that determined the copyright belonged to the public.
Picasso-mania reached all the way to the Plaza Art Theater burlesque show on North Avenue where ”Miss Rusty Picasso” stripped her own veil. As the Cor-Ten steel of the sculpture rusted from light gray to orange to its current deep brown, the Picasso became very much a local citizen, donning, on occasion, an enormous Bears headband, Bulls cap or, today, its party hat.
Center of attraction
It has cast its striped shadow over countless festivals and protests. Chicagoans seem friendlier, in return. ”I don`t think everybody understands it,” says Lash. ”I do think everybody enjoys it as a symbol of the city. That`s important.”
”It`s reliable,” says Emmett McShane, 47, a city fire marshal, who attended the unveiling the day he returned from serving in the Army. ”It`s like what we think the city is about. The ”L” is there, the Picasso is there, the mayor is there. It seems to represent a lot of strength.”
”I have always looked upon it as a piece of spirited dignity,” says Anatol Rychalski, who oversaw construction of the sculpture at the now-defunct American Bridge Division of US Steel Corp. (now USX) in Gary, Ind. ”It`s a modern expression of the sense we assign to the Statue of Liberty.”
Teenagers skateboarding the slanted base and shoppers strolling the plaza`s open market still puzzle over its mystery. ”It`s like art in general,” says Jose Andreu, 37, coordinator of Mexican Fine Arts Center Tent at Gallery 37, the art training program across the street. Andreu designed the birthday hat. ”You`re going to get as many opinions as heartbeats,” he says. ”It`s a weird monument,” says David A. Torres, 10, who recently was running up and sliding down the Picasso`s base, ”but the city would look weird without it.”
