I’ve just visited Chicago which must be a city with the most amazing public art collection. With over 700 works of art, including a huge Picasso, downtown Chicago streets are like walking through a sculpture gallery! Before you hit the streets, I highly recommend an Architectural River Cruise. it gives the City context as well as explaining the history of so many of the beautiful buildings.
The Picasso is hugely impressive, unnamed, I saw it after visiting the Art Institute, and one can imagine it is a rendition of a woman’s face, an animal, the shape and form immediately recognisable as Picasso. The City said they would pay for it but once completed, Picasso gifted it to Chicago.
The Picasso sculpture
Then there is a Chagall, a Henry Moore and many other names I didn’t know but admired their work. The more recent public sculpture is in Millennium Park.
Cloudgate, or the ‘Bean’ as it is more often called, is inspired by liquid mercury the mirror finish encourages lots of photographs. Cloudgate is made of 168 plates of stainless steel, it’s the world’s largest outdoor sculpture installation and is by British artist Anish Kapoor.
Nearby the Crown Fountain, is an amazing installation of two 50 foot high glass brick towers with lights, sound, changing images and a random spurt of water. The shallow water path between the two fountains was full of children and adults cooling their heels!
Wow, what a creative city with great leadership can achieve.
