The best public art makes you stop in your tracks and gape in wonder. Chicago has quite a few public works that do just that, particularly after the construction of Millennium Park and Cloud Gate. We came across Ralph Helmick and Stuart Schechter's Rara Avis while walking through the airport in Chicago last year. I know my photography does not do this piece justice, but it absolutely wowed me, and not because it was of a bird. To see this in three dimensions was a thoroughly unexpected bit of wonderment - a bird made of hundreds of suspended aircraft, with a shadow made out of weights, soaring through the open space of the concourse.From the description:
"For this suspended artwork Helmick + Schechter Studio modeled 51 sculptures illustrating the history of flight. The aircraft range from the very earliest flying machines to commercial airliners and contemporary spacecraft. Cast in multiples and precisely affixed to hundreds of cables, the multitude of small pewter sculptures collectively forms a colossal cardinal, the state bird of Illinois."
0 comments:
Post a Comment