 |
| J. Taylor Wallace: "Brushy Mountain" |
Art in the public realm can be difficult to digest. Remember the cow sculptures on the streets
some years back or the giant Marilyn Monroe as of late? Not that sculpture
should be limited to a museum, but much of what’s outdoors in this city at
least can be too much kitsch and not enough of that which makes us twitch.
Immediately coming to mind there’s the seasonal music and now poetry heard from the flower gardens on State Street. Poetry should be shared in an
intimate environment, where the voice resonates and the words linger. A street corner simply does not suffice for these poems, where they are most often left unnoticed by passersby.
Not to forget the coloring of the street corner on State and
Adams, a project called Color Jam which is part of Art Loop, in itself an attempt to revive the Loop with
contemporary art. Color Jam used 76,000 square
feet of obscenely colored vinyl that might have been better left to create the
50,000 or some odd records that could have come from that amount of material.
Thankfully Color Jam is no longer jamming people’s vision as the exhibit has
passed.
It seems that the city of Chicago is making some
rather eclectic choices when it comes to introducing the arts to the public.
Nonetheless, some of what is being shared does not evoke feelings of kitsch,
disgust or obscenities. One such
endeavor involves sculptures along the Lakefront path. Although there is already enough to look at
along the path, what with the lake, the trees and animals, some of the sculptures do blend well with the environment, such as the one above. A modern day outhouse one may conjecture, a secret stairwell leading to fantastical places perhaps or just a good wall to rest a tired bike. One great thing about public displays of art is the lack of guards protecting the work so we are free to touch, climb, or lean upon. On display until September 2013, Chicago Sculpture Exhibition may offer some inspiration for those on the lake path.
No comments:
Post a Comment