So... to make a short story long:
This evening, the Yeti and I biked to downtown Chicago along the lakefront. Beautiful sunset, nice trail, exhilarating ride. Yadda yadda yadda. We watched some fireworks at Navy Pier (don't ask me why there were fireworks on a Wednesday night), and went over to the newly minted Millenium Park.
For those of you not from Chicago, this is a large piece of land on Chicago's lakefront, immediately adjacent to downtown (just north of the Art Institute, if you must know). It used to be a railyard, and Mayor Daley decided to turn it into a big park. Very Daley-ish thing to do. It has cost some ridiculous amount of money (to the tune of nearly half a billion smackeroos, IIRC), but a good chunk of the cost has been defrayed by rich people who want to stick their name on stuff.
The park seemed pretty nice, as these things go, until we reached this... thing. As far as I could tell, it looked like two big honking towers made out of glass bricks. Upon a closer inspection, these two towers were lit from inside by various colors. What was really odd, though, was on the two facing sides of the towers, extremely large faces were shown on enormous LED displays (50 X 22 feet... I don't want to know how much that cost). They went through some odd gyrations and then puckered their lips... after which a large spurt of water came out of each face's "mouth". After some more inexplicable facial expressions, the two displays turned off, and water started sheeting down the sides of these towers.
I don't have the slightest idea what they are for.
Surely there is some purpose; even sculptures tend to have a point, right? But this isn't really a sculpture, or much of anything else... it just is. I've since learned that this odd contraption is called Crown Fountain (three guesses to know which family gave money for it), and that it's supposed to be art, and a "bold statement". Or something like that.
So check out the link, and try to enlighten me. What's the bloody point?
I'd wager that in a few years, those video images won't be of odd faces, but with the latest traffic and weather conditions for passing motorists. "O'Hare to the Junction, 35 minutes, congestion on the Eisenhower, accident at Dempster on the outbound Edens..."
Now that would exemplify Chicago.
edit: For those of you who don't have the slightest idea of what that last bit meant, Chicago does not refer to their highways by numbers, but rather by names (colloquial or not). As such, traffic reports may seem to be utter gibberish to someone not well-acquainted with the area. This is a good reference for understanding these terms. To understand what's going on, you normally need to have a good grasp of the entire Chicago highway system, the major exits, and regular travel times. Good luck. *Grins*
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2 comments:
if nothing else, it's an interesting commentary on our times. art is often reflective of the time it is created in. in that aspect, this is an explempary piece of modern art. (and most cities I've lived in have named highways instead of numbers, or a combination of the 2) :) - anita blake
*grins* Perhaps the post then says something about my interest in modern art. Heh.
As for the name/number thing... what's odd is that Chicagoans don't even know the numbers. I honestly couldn't name any. It makes giving directions to visitors an interesting experience: "Well, take the Edens until it turns into the Kennedy, then..." They'll look at you blankly, and say, "now which one is the Edens?" After which I'll be stumped, and have to say, "er... it's about 5 miles west of the lake, running north-south (although the signs say East-West)... and.. uh..." ;) I think we're just odd.
Thanks for stopping by!
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