Chicago: Roundup #2 Art and the City

"The Bean"

Cloud Gate was a landmark that we had to see. It struck me how long we linguered not only to interact with it but to talk to the other people there share our experiences around it.  This is the power of art and specifically sculpture to bend our attention to place. In the wake of the current political climate following the election, I am moved by his response only weeks after I had a chance to see it for the first time, to paint it black. "Taking advantage of his exclusive rights to make artistic use of the high-tech, light-absorbing material Vantablack, the British artist Anish Kapoor has covered the entire surface of his Chicago public sculpture “Cloud Gate” (2006) with it.  He comments: 'I think the Vantablack version is more about introspection, about becoming disoriented, lost, and enveloped in an overwhelming void of nothingness.'" - Hyperallergic

He says this about the role of sculpture in public space: "I think that there’s a lot that can be done in terms of engaging real public space. For the most part, all the symbolic values that we’ve given public squares, objects in public squares, etc. etc.—all those things are gone...One has to look somewhere else for those deeper communal values...Sculpture plays a whole role in the whole process of us saying, “What is our communal space?” Cities generally speaking are planned to death. They don’t allow room! They don’t allow even the smallest room for this kind of innovative, open-ended process that looks at, “What does it mean to properly participate? " - City Lab