View of The modern wing ( Art institut of Chicago)
Open May 16, 2009
Designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Renzo Piano, the Modern Wing will provide a new home for the museum’s collection of 20th- and 21st-century art. Now a decade in the making, this 264,000 square-foot building makes the Art Institute the second largest art museum in the United States. The building will house the museum’s world-renowned collections of modern European painting and sculpture, contemporary art, architecture and design, and photography. The extraordinary scope and quality of these collections will be a revelation; each will be displayed more comprehensively than ever before. The opening of the Modern Wing will allow the Art Institute to take its rightful place as one of the world’s great collections of modern and contemporary art.
In preparation for creating his Crown Fountain in Chicago’s new Millennium Park, Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa made video portraits of the faces of over 1,000 Chicagoans. The fountain consists of two 50-foot high towers, created in collaboration with the Chicago architectural firm of Krueck and Sexton, that face each other across a 48-foot wide pool, flush with the sidewalk level. The thin layer of water that bubbles up from several pumps along the surface flows in an unbroken sheet to a razor-thin moat along the periphery where the water flows back down to recirculate.
Opening Day – July 16th, 2004 – Videos of Chicagoan’s faces are projected on the LED displays behind the glass block walls of Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain.
Every twelve minutes, each projected face becomes a gargoyle as he or she purses their lips and a spout of water spews forth. The image then disappears, and water cascades down all the sides of the towers. Parents stand along the periphery of the fountain, watching in delight as their equally delighted children wade through the thin slab of water.
Who created this?
Anish Kapoor, who is an Indian sculptor originally from Bombay, but now residing and working in London. He designed it, and the City of Chicago Millennium Park Project folks created it.
Anish Kapoor, on the right, is photographed with his masterpiece.
66 feet long
33 feet high
42 feet wide
Weight: 110-tons
Stainless steel plates over a fortified steel frame. Under these plates, it is actually hollow on the inside. It was built and finished in place, on site because it was too heavy, bulky and dangerous to transport as one completed piece into Downtown Chicago. Also, after it was built, it had to be polished and have its seams removed, giving the appearance of being one large shiny object, instead of being the sum of many shiny stainless steal plates.
Does it have any other names?
“The Bean,” “The Chicago Bean,” “That Big Shiny Thing in Millennium Park”
What are people saying?
Most provocative artwork since Picasso’s Chicago sculpture from August 1967.
Cloud Gate is a magnificent, magical art piece that adds a great deal to Chicago and its people. First of all, it looks like a timeless, but futuristic object that has magically transported here from some time in the distant future. Next, it draws you in and makes you feel like a kid again as you feel compelled to explore it. The quality of the design and craftsmanship are obvious as you approach to study its huge smooth shiny, curvy surface. Finally, like an enormous magical curvy mirror, it portrays you, all the people around it, and the cityscape in a way that amazes you and makes you happy.
You simply have to go visit Cloud Gate in Chicago’s Millennium Park. As far as static art that appears to be interactive and compels you to interact with it, Cloud Gate is the ultimate right now, certainly in the U.S., but probably in the whole world!
