There’s public art in nearly every corner of the city. Take a day to explore, admiring works by well-known artists and local leaders of the emerging art scene. Or just slow down during rush hour to take in works along the “L.” You may be inspired to get your own hands dirty in community projects that beautify, provoke and inspire.
Alan Artner’s picks
Our art critic’s five favorite pieces were created by some of the biggest public art names in Chicago:
1. “FLAMINGO” (1974, Alexander Calder)
In form, color and scale, “Flamingo” relates better to its setting than almost any other contemporary sculpture in the Loop.
Where: Federal Center Plaza, Dearborn and Adams Streets
2. “LINES IN FOUR DIRECTIONS” (1985, Sol LeWitt)
One of the masters of Minimal Art created this work, characteristically cool, logical and subtle enough to be easily missed.
Where: Side wall, rear, of building at 18 W. Jackson Blvd.
3. “READING CONES” (1988, Richard Serra)
A powerful, formally satisfying piece by the strongest American sculptor of the second half of the 20th Century.
Where: Grant Park, Monroe Street between Columbus and Lake Shore Drives
4. “SKYSPACE” (2006, James Turrell)
Seen in the hour before dawn or hour after dusk, this masterly space for observing the heavens makes virtually all other public artworks seem like so many superfluous objects.
Where: Roosevelt Road and Halsted Street
5. “FOUNTAIN OF TIME” (1922, Lorado Taft)
No other work of public art in Chicago matches its symbolic grandeur.
Where: Midway Plaisance, Cottage Grove Avenue and 59th Street
Art group picks
Jon Pounds, executive director of the Chicago Public Art Group, leads you off the well-worn path:
1. BETH-ANNE LIFE CENTER (1996-2003)
Artists created mosaics, murals and a griot’s (African storyteller) bench to embellish the community center.
Where: 1140 N. Lamon Ave.
2. “BEGINNING TO DREAM” (2005)
The outdoor classroom and play-sculpture by Henri Marquet and John Pitman Weber invites visitors to imagine being an 8-year-old climbing, Lilliputian style, over a much larger sleeping child.
Where: Sabin School, 2150 W. Hirsch St.
3. “WATER MARKS” (1998)
Through a series of sculpted concrete benches covered by glass tile mosaics and handmade ceramic tiles, various artists tell the story of Chicago’s growth resulting from the Illinois and Michigan Canal.
Where: Navy Pier front lawn
4. ELLIOT DONNELLEY YOUTH CENTER (1979-96)
A collection that includes a playground and spectacular murals by Marcus Akinlana and the team of Mitchell Caton and Calvin Jones is located in Bronzeville, where the community mural movement was born in 1967.
Where: 3947 S. Michigan Ave.
5. “WHERE WE CAME FROM … WHERE WE’RE GOING”
Residents of Hyde Park tell about their life’s journeys in text combined with their portraits in a 1992 mural by Olivia Gude.
Where: 56th Street and Lake Park Avenue
CTA on the go
Art adorns many of the CTA stations. Now the agency and the City of Chicago will install art at 25 more beginning next year through their Arts in Transit program. Last year’s Blue Line renovation brought eight works.
Murals, murals, on the wall
Chicago Park District field houses
The Chicago Conservation Center is restoring 58 murals at 11 field houses. The center is especially proud of its work at Sherman Park, 1301 W. 52nd St., where paintings were covered with nearly 100 years of soot and discolored varnish. “Now when you walk into the field house you can enjoy the piece as originally intended by the artists involved,” said Heather Becker, chief executive of the conservation center.
FIELD HOUSE MAP KEY
1. Warren Park
2. Eugene Field Park
3. Jefferson Park
4. Independence Park
5. Rutherford Sayre Park
6. Pulaski Park
7. Fuller Park
8. Sherman Park
9. Hamilton Park
10. Palmer Park
11. Calumet Park
Lane Technical High School
This Chicago public school boasts 66 murals, many painted during the Depression. Aside from aesthetics, the murals provide valuable teaching tools. Retired art teacher Flora Doody created social studies lesson plans that use the murals to bring the Industrial Revolution and immigration stories to life. “She’s like the angel of the mural,” Chicago Public Schools spokesman Tim Tuten said of Duty, who also led a mission to find a 1905 mural that students currently are helping preserve. Meet Doody and trained student docents who lead art tours through the school. “If you go there, you’ll be definitely impressed,” Tuten said. “It has a sense of student ownership.” Call 773-534-5400 to set up a tour at the school, 2501 W. Addison St. Tours are by appointment only and given during regular school hours.
Be a part of it
Alternatives, a non-profit youth agency, got a splash of life and energy on the brown brick facade of their building this summer in Uptown.
Chicago Public Art Group artist Tracy Van Duinen led teenagers to create the bricolage mosaic “I Will …” at the agency, 4730 N. Sheridan Rd. But everyone at the center collaborated to select the words–meant to follow the title–that were put on the wall.
“The words and imagery are supposed to be very emblematic of what happens at Alternatives,” Van Duinen said. “There’s inspire, trust, love, grow, respecteverything they’re either taught there or called to do.”
Bricolage mosaic techniques are loose and improvisational. Since they require little training, they are ideal community projects.
Van Duinen is preparing for a 175-foot-long bricolage mosaic on an underpass in Edgewater that will explore the community’s relationship with nature, its architecture and cultural diversity.
Community members currently are producing elements to put up on the wall next summer.
In Marquette Park on the Southwest Side, a project led by CPAG artist Juan Angel Chvez also is fostering a sense of ownership. He currently is creating a mosaic-mural hybrid on the new home of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, a health clinic and service agency that will hold an unofficial opening Oct. 7.
The piece will represent the center within the context of a diverse community, using area architectural elements as inspiration.
It also will employ mirror highlights and domes to convey the concept of reflection.
“It’s an honest depiction of what a community is,” Chvez said. “You can’t get any more real than looking at a mirror and seeing yourself.”
Making of the bricolage mosaic
1. Photos of Alternatives youths traced and transferred to acetate, projected onto the wall and traced with acrylic paint.
2. Broken pieces of mirror applied to the outline.
3. Loose elements, such as the clouds and words, attached.
4. Buckets of various broken elements such as ceramic tiles, china and porcelain, filled in around outlines.
5. Spaces between the tiles grouted and painted.
6. Paintings of faces attached to the wall.
MOSAIC VOLUNTEERS OPPORTUNITIES
– Where: Underpass at Lake Shore Drive and Bryn Mawr in Edgewater
Theme: Exploration of community’s relationships with natural surroundings
Contact: Office of Ald. Mary Ann Smith (48th) at 773-784-5277 or e-mail info@ masmith48.org
– Where: East wall of new Inner-City Muslim Action Network space, 2744 W. 63rd St., in Marquette Park
Theme: Depiction of the health clinic and community through concept of reflection
Contact: Donna Stites, first deputy of Greater Southwest at 773-436-1000, ext. 118, or e-mail greatersouthwest.org
Sources: Chicago Public Art Group, CTA, Chicago Public Schools, The Chicago Conservation Center, Greater Southwest Development Corporation, “A Guide to Chicago’s Murals” by Mary Lackritz Gray
– See microfilm for complete graphic.
