CHICAGO PUBLIC ART - #12 - PICASSO - 1967

Who doesn't know about this one? And as long as it's been there, that's as long as I still don't like it. Artner says it's a "conflation [blend, fusion] of the head of a woman and an Afghan dog". Oh, really? Couldn't tell it by me. Looks more like the head of an Afghan dog and the body of a woman. With angel's wings. Whatever. It is untitled - probably because Picasso couldn't tell either what it was.
And I would like some explanation of exactly why it was given us. Picasso was never here. Artner specifically says it was a gift, so it was not a commission.
On the day I went, they were putting up the Christmas tree in Daley Plaza, so there was all this construction stuff around, striped tents, a kajillion little trees which would be lifted up to become one humongous big one. So my pictures are kind've limited. The picture in the Tribune of July 25th has kids on it, I think they're skateboarding. So some have fun with it, at least. Personally, I loathe it. Those Indians at Michigan Avenue or the bison in Humboldt Park are a much more fitting image of Chicago than this is.
January 16, 2009
Addendum: On a recent visit to the Art Institute, in the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, they had a display case with books concerning Picasso and his pets. One of those pets was indeed an Afghan dog. And the question was raised by the now defunct "Chicago's American" newspaper on Tuesday, September 20, 1966 ( it cost 7 cents!), "Is our Picasso really Picasso's Afghan hound, Kabul?" According to the article, the flowing oval forms on either side have been described as hair. Dog hair? Anyway, Picasso was 85 when this statue was unveiled. I just wish I could post a picture of an Afghan hound to compare.

CHICAGO PUBLIC ART - #11 - RADIANT ONE - 1957

Wow! We leap from 1930 all the way to 1957. I guess you can tell the Great Depression and World War II and the Korean dust-up might have repressed art somewhat, at least as far as city public art goes. This is the first indoor public art on the list.

Anyways - this one is a stunner. In the very small lobby of the Inland Steel Building at 30 West Monroe Street, corner of Monroe and Dearborn. Created by Richard Lippold. And kudos to him indeed.
Artner: "The earliest successful abstract sculpture on permanent display in the Loop uses metal rods and wires to create a shimmering play of light (enhanced by a reflecting pool) that now seems to embody the futuristic aspirations of the Space Age."

I cannot disagree with any of that. And what he doesn't mention is that the pool and surrounding lip are made of the very same material as the floor, some black and white speckled stuff. So that the whole thing just glides together.
I love this piece. It is very space age looking. Whatever that may mean. The pictures do not show the wires much at all. Sorry. There is a bench right in front of it, so if you want, you can sit and contemplate it's serene beauty, or just eat lunch on a cold day. I don't think the guard at the desk in the corner would mind.

PUBLIC ART IN CHICAGO # 10 - CERES 1930

Now we enter the 30s and Art Deco. This statue, atop the Chicago Board of Trade Building is of the goddess Ceres, the goddess of the harvest, of grains, of wheat. It too is rather quintessential Chicago, but darn if I know why it was put way up there where, really, nobody can see it.

It was created by John Storrs.

To quote Mr. Artner: "A treatment in aluminum of the Roman goddess of grain holding a bag of corn in her right hand and sheaf of wheat in her left; her blank face and classical gown show the ultimate degree in Art Moderne streamlining."












These two horrible pictures are the best I can do with my equally horrrible cheap digital. I do own a magnificent Nikon with all kinds of lenses, including a good zoom, but of course I cannot upload that. And no pedestrian on LaSalle can begin to see the features that Mr. Artner describes. The Chicago Board of Trade, by the way, is at 141 West Jackson Boulevard; LaSalle Street dead-ends there from the north, then takes a zigzig behind to continue south of that building. Perhaps we should all go around Chicago with a pair of binoculars. Some great stuff is way up high.
As to Ceres, you can perhaps, if you look hard, see that her face is blank, but no way you would ever suspect she is of aluminum, or what she is holding.
I move she be relocated to the lobby, or at least a copy, so we can all enjoy her.

January 16, 2009.

Well, wonder of wonders, there are indeed copies. I stumbled across one in the Art Institute before Christmas, sans camera, alas. So three days ago I went back and took some pictures. It is in Gallery 271, just inside the door, in a glass case, about three feet high. It seems, according to the info I read there, that Storrs, seeing how popular the Ceres was, did make smaller copies for private investors, and this one was donated to the Art Institute in 1981. It is copper alloy plated with nickel and then chrome. What she is holding is a grain bag in one hand ( I thought it was a bag full of money, which seems appropriate, given what the Board of Trade does, but then I guess goddesses are above such crass concerns), and in the other a sheaf of wheat. Further info says that the fluting on the gown echoes the vertical stripes on the roof of said Board of Trade, but of course, nobody can see that from street level.



















Here you can indeed see that her face is blank.

CHICAGO PUBLIC ART - #9 - THE BOWMAN AND THE SPEARMAN

Done in 1928 by Ivan Mestrovic, these two statues grace either side of Congress Parkway just east of Michigan Avenue. To me, they are far more quintessential Chicago than is the Picasso in Daley Plaza, and I have always found it rather amusing that both these famous-in-Chicago pieces were sculpted by Europeans.

So these were made only two years later than those pieces in the Oakbrook Terrace cemetery. One year later than Buckingham Fountain, just to get some perspective here. And the Spirit of Music was 1923. Apparently, the 20s were wonderfully productive, art-wise, at least here in Chicago.

To quote Alan Artner yet again "These equestrian sculptures, intended to commemorate the tribes that once lived on Illinois prairies, have actions conveyed entirely through their bodies, straining at weapons the artist has forced his audience to create from memory."













Now I frequently drive into the city right between these two, I bet hundreds if not thousands of times in the years I have lived here. And I do think of them as representing this city. But I have never actually walked around them and looked up at them as I did yesterday. Boy, they are something! Talk about rippling muscled bodies, these are them, in spades.

And of course I also never noticed that they have no weapons in their hands at all.

They are really quite magnificent and entirely worthy of a close-up look-see. Just driving past will not do at all.







































There is something heroically strong about them. And it goes to show that if you really want to see something, you have to get off your horse (car) and walk.

The last picture is somewhat murky. If you look close you can see the two horseman on either side of the road.

PUBLIC ART IN CHICAGO # 8 - FIGURES, RELIEFS, URN, FOR THE LOUIS HIPPACH MEMORIAL CHAPEL

On a glorious day some weeks ago, I went to the Chapel Hill Gardens West Cemetery where this chapel is located. It is in Oakbrook Terrace, not Villa Park, as Alan Artner seems to think. Located on Roosevelt road, just west of Route # 83, very easy to get to.

According to the cemetery's literature, the chapel was built in 1926, not 1928, as Mr. Artner has in his list, but I'm not going to quibble over two years. The great bronze funerary urn ( 5'6" in height) was created by Richard Bock, and is a masterpiece, in this humble person's opinion. Apparently Mr. Bock was a long-time collaborator with Frank Lloyd Wright, but this urn and chapel are pure Art Nouveau, I think.

Mr. Hippach built this chapel to memorialize and honor his parents, but curiously, they are not buried inside, but rather outside, in the back.
The owners of the cemetery have recently renovated the building, and it shows. All of the figures are snowy white and clean. The tile on the inside floor gleams, and the windows are sparkly. All is now in immaculate condition. However, the outside dentals, which surround three sides, do seem inappropriate to this period, and I have to question whether they are original. They appear to be of coarse granite , not in keeping with the mottled gray and brown granite of the exterior walls. And beautiful they are too.

On the urn, located just outside the portico, are found relief heads of Christ, Mohamed, Moses, Buddha, Shiva, Thor, Zeus, and Isis. A most catholic array of religious figures. Under these heads are representations of Maternity and Childhood, Education, Labor, Enlightenment, Love and Life, Harvest, Old Age Victorious, and Parting of the Thread of Life (these names are taken from the booklet I obtained from the office).

Most impresive are the four figures that crown each corner of the chapel, north south, east, and west. They have been dubbed "The Watchers". Cut in white marble, they represent reflections on Life and Death.

I particularly liked the expressions cut into the belfry walls on the north and south sides:

"Lest we forget that the main current of our will is still like the green moving waters and our reasoned choices like the flutter of foam of its surface."

"Lest we forget that out of wild nature we are come, that our instincts are great, our wisdoms little."

To me, this chapel is perfectly wonderful, and the reason I have been so long in posting about it, is that I have about decided to have my ashes put in it. The cemetery people, in restoring the building, put glass cases across the east end of the interior, on both sides of the entrance, and they are not very expensive, by today's inflated funeral costs. I had been thinking about what to do for some time now. My family has had some decidedly adventurous funeral experiences, to say the least. My father's ashes were thrown down on the track as the horses of the Kentucky Derby were thundering past. My mother's body was driven, in her casket of course, by my husband and me in our Chevy van, down to Louisville, Kentucky, where she spent the night until we could inter her the next morning.
I think the funeral industry has gotten out of hand, and any way I can cheat them out of the thousands of dollars they gouge from us, I will. I do love to roam cemeteries, however, and read all the gravestones, and look at all the various expressions of art to be found there. So much spent on the dead, but so much history there too. So I was thinking of having a gravestone, and I told my sons that it should say "She read 'Ulysses' twice".
Then I was thinking about the new and coming, I hope, green movement, where bodies are simply laid in a white shroud, and put in the ground, in a forest-like place, and allowed to decompose as nature intended. Relatives themselves can even dig the grave.

But then I came to the Hippach Memorial Chapel, which, see, I would never have done if not for my obsessive-compulsive nature. Going through Alan Artner's public art list. And now I think this is the place for me, because I so love architecture and old beautiful buildings, and this way I can have some hand in keeping it restored, although I am sure I threw the rep for a loop when I asked to see the legal literature on keeping this building in repair for hundreds of years in the future. Laws and owners change.

I am rather excited about it, although I, like all the rest of humanity, simply cannot imagine not seeing the next dawn. But here, I loved, not only the building, but also the great urn, with its multiplicity of beliefs, I, who have none.