Forever A Fangirl

The Belly of the Bean: Anish Kapoor's public art sculpture "Cloud Gate"

I'd not been able to capture any good images of Cloud Gate, the public art sculpture  in Millennium Park, Chicago since they'd finished sanding the seams some time ago.

I finally got my chance yesterday .

Much more in my Chicago Photo album   

Earlier post with photos in this blog.

Millennium Park Opening Weekend With Photographs (Original Post) on this blog

Click to enlarge

Find Me!

This is the interior of Anish Kapoor's public art sculpture "Cloud Gate." It's nickname is "The Bean." I am inside The Bean taking this photo. I'll give you a clue: I'm wearing blue Birkenstocks. :) (One Two more: My son, who is 6'2" is standing behind me...and there's two of each of us.)

The Bean at night ~

And my favourite from Millennium Park~(click)

"Blue Bow"

   

Cloud Gate/The Bean: Are We There Yet?

Looks like soon, very soon! Please see my previous posts as this project progressed. Many photos of mine in the first post:

http://cyncity.typepad.com/cyn_city/2004/07/anish_kapoors_c_1.html

http://cyncity.typepad.com/cyn_city/2005/08/making_it_shine.html

PLANNED DEDICATION: 05.2006. Cost: 1999 (estimate pre-park opening): $6 million 2004 (at park opening): $11.5 million 2005 (Memorial Day): $17 million 2006 (final): $23 million

THE BEAN: From dream to reality

Alan G. Artner and Charles Storch

Published April 16, 2006

By the numbers Inception of project: 01.1999.

Artist: Anish Kapoor, an internationally known native of Bombay living in London.

Work: "Cloud Gate," the artist's first permanent public art in the United States.

Location: Planned for Millennium Park's Lurie Garden, but resited to SBC Plaza, east of the park's skating rink.

Material: Stainless steel. Dimensions: 66 feet long, 33 feet high, 42 feet wide. Weight: 110 tons. Number of plates forming the structure: 168.

Time creating the plates: 04.2002 to 06.2004. Fabricator: Performance Structures Inc., Oakland.

Working process: Back and forth between artist in England and fabricator in California conducted by phone, e-mail, drawings and models.

Fabrication: Performed on site under the eyes of Web cameras that allowed viewers to follow its development.

Scheduled completion: 07.2004. Actual completion: 03.2006. Reason for delay: At park's opening, welding of plates had not been completed and 3- to 5-inch seams between plates remained visible. Time welding, grinding, sanding, polishing and buffing plates: 01.2005 to 03.2006.

PLANNED DEDICATION: 05.2006. Cost: 1999 (estimate pre-park opening): $6 million 2004 (at park opening): $11.5 million 2005 (Memorial Day): $17 million 2006 (final): $23 million

Alan G. Artnercom and Charles Storch. Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

Millennium Park Crown Fountain Fun

EDIT****** The album is done and it's quite good---> please GO now and see it. Thanks! Up 'till 5 a.m. again in the pursuit of...not blogging about politics. Check out my very-much-under-construction photo album on the grand opening of Millennium Park Chicago, 2004. EDIT****** The album is done and it's quite good---> please GO now and see it. Thanks! I'll get some titles for the pics up after I get some sleep. Enjoy!

"If you don't like the weather in Chicago, wait fifteen minutes, it will change."

Ok, so now it's dropped 25 degrees in a couple hours. Gotta love this place. As the old cliché goes, "If you don't like the weather in Chicago, wait fifteen minutes, it will change."

So two things today.
I accompanied my spouse to his individual therapy session and helped the therapist figure what she should do with him, right in front of him. I am NOT kidding.
I told her I wanted to help but it felt really odd discussing him as if he weren't in the room. This is what I meant about the level of quality one may encounter when seeking professional assistance.
There was basic getting-to-know-the-client steps that she by-passed and went straight to me for the scoop on. Heh. I'm not going to do her job for her or his therapy for him, but I gave her plenty of info that she would have worked to have found out otherwise.
On the plus side, he is working with a "movement therapist" and he likes her. She mixes an Asian philosophy/holistic healing/clinical psychology approach and it sounds good to me. He says he's just going to stay with her (and the shrink for meds, of course.) It's kinda weird that the first one recommended he call the second one. Maybe she felt over her head, right off. I dunno. He says he wants to work on his personal stuff and then in time, we can hopefully work together as a couple with him having new "tools" in hand.

The Crown Fountain by Jaume Plensa

The other major event of my day was getting to the charity store and finding about 30 boxes of books stacked higher than I am tall, for me to sort through.
They were from a dead guy's basement, and boy, what story they told. Apparently he self-published a book about Greek culture, because there was 200 copies of the same book, sealed up in eight boxes. The rest of the books were all about the origin and growth of various cultures and races from around the world. The mind-blowing thing was that he took a #3 pencil to many of the books and defaced them by heavily underlining, circling & making comments and and arrows....on almost every page. The upside is out of the 500 or so books, about half so far are unlined--guessing he didn't read 'em (or they took away his pencils. Ooh, bad me). I found the book I'm currently listening to on CD--heavily marked but readable, so that was neat (he had the Al Franken "Rush Limbaugh..." book written prior to "Liars," too). I'll keep those but (hopefully) I have a bunch of books to post. I am totally wiped out right now, though. It'll have to wait until tomorrow.

'Nite All,

--Cyn
P.S. We (spouse, younger son, & I) watched Monty Python And The Holy Grail tonight. It was a good time. :D

Opening weekend, Crown Fountain, Chicago.

Millennium Park: Crown Fountain Reflecting Pool and Towers

Millenium Park Reflecting Pool 07.17.04...more to come

Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate" a/k/a The Jelly Bean

Please see an update on Cloud Gate (in this blog) at: http://cyncity.typepad.com/cyn_city/2005/08/making_it_shine.html

Please see the  most recent update with photos of the finished Cloud Gate and more.                           

Five years in the planning, London-based artist Anish Kapoor brings Chicago's brand new Millennium Park, it's aesthetic centrepiece.

This thing is so, so, so coooool!
You must experience it to believe it. People smiling, puzzling, exclaiming--it provoked all kinds of response--but I heard not a negative word about it.
But it's not finished! It's to be covered up again after one week on view--until November--to finish the seams.
Can't wait until it "opens" permanently.Total fun-ness and right across the street from the Art Institute!

Heading Into "The Belly" Of The Beast

Find my spouse and kid (or not). I'm taking the shot.
A  major feature of Millennium Park is the 110-ton elliptical sculpture designed by the celebrated British artist Anish Kapoor, one of the most prolific and respected sculptors in the world. "Cloud Gate," the monumental sculpture located on SBC Plaza was named by the artist on June 29 when the final panel of the ellptical sculpture was installed.

The sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly-polished stainless steel "plates" that create an elliptically-arched, highly reflective work with Chicago's skyline and Millennium Park itself as a dramatic backdrop. Visitors will be able to fully experience the majestic nature of the work by literally walking through and around, as it was designed for public interaction. Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture is among the largest in the world, measuring 66-feet long by 33-feet high.

Outside the bean. Find me!

Anish Kapoor revealed his chosen title for the elliptical stainless steel sculpture as Cloud Gate. As is his custom, Kapoor waited until the sculpture was fully assembled to reveal its name. Now on view, the polishing of Cloud Gate will be complete by the fall.

"What I wanted to do in Millennium Park is make something that would engage the Chicago skyline," says Kapoor. "So everything that’s white in this model would be ground, earth, and everything that isn’t white would be sky, so that one will see the clouds kind of floating in, with those very tall buildings reflected in the work.

Inside ~ "The Belly Button"
I'm there. I'm wearing a short, white skirt and gray short sleeve v-neck top, if that helps.

"And then, since it is in the form of a gate, the participant, the viewer, will be able to enter into this very deep chamber that does in a way the same thing to one’s reflection as the exterior of the piece is doing to the reflection of the city around.

"It's a multiple-layered experience of a kind of personal space that's opened up in the stone and the city space that's reflected on the exterior."

(the artist)