Space Junction of Energy

Space Junction of Energy, 1970

Jerald Jacquard

CTA Belmont Station

945 West Belmont Avenue

           

            Originally installed in 1974 at the Kimball station as part of the Chicago Transit Authority’s modernization project, this welded steel-plate sculpture was moved recently to the Belmont station on the Brown/Red/Purple lines. Intended to suggest the movement of mass through space, the geometric forms seem to either expand or compress, as the viewer changes his or her location, thus creating a new composition. As the artist explains, two of the components are balanced upon wedges “to dramatize its weight and compression.” The third component rests upon a non-functional wheel, suggestive of potential movement as well as the wheels of the trains passing through the station. The industrial orange paint was chosen because it is a good “reflector of volume” and it provides a visual contrast with its gray and brown surroundings.

Meridian VII

Meridian VII, 2002

Ed McCullough

Chicago Police Headquarters Building

35^th Street and South Michigan Avenue

            Commissioned by the Chicago Public Art Program, Meridian VII reveals Chicago sculptor Ed McCullough’s ongoing fascination with space, form and time. The curvilinear nature of the stainless steel form is echoed in the whimsical lines in the finish of the surface. The four-part base invites passers-by to sit on and, thus, pause within the form, creating a bodily interaction with the work. As McCullough describes:  “Arcs, circles and variants thereof make up these pieces; indeed, they stake out boundaries and make connections with what is not there, the open spaces in and around a sculpture where people gather.” Another of his sculptures from the Meridian series is located at Dominican University in River Forest, a near west suburb of Chicago.

Renaissance Park Sculpture Fountain

Renaissance Park Sculpture Fountain, 2001

Jerzy Kenar                         

1300 West 79th Street

When Mayor Richard M. Daley dedicated this one-acre park, he stated that, “The area, which was once ignored and run-down, has begun a new era, a renaissance, of exciting change." In 2000, the city transferred a derelict site in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood to the Chicago Park District for the creation of a passive park (no ball playing, no skateboarding). It was named in honor of its symbolic and physical importance to the improving community.

Kenar's sculpture is the centerpiece of the park. Black granite spheres in a pyramidal pile represent significant African American figures. The names of eleven significant people who made important contributions to music, literature, sports, politics, and social change are incised into the individual stones. Among the names are Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, "father of modern Chicago blues" musician Muddy Waters and Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, regarded as the first permanent resident of Chicago. Water flows from the sculpture down a path toward a tall black granite plinth. This "river" represents a spring of positive change symbolically allowing love and positive energy to flow through the entire community.

Polish-born artist Jerzy Kenar (born 1948) lived in Sweden before emigrating to the United States in 1979 and opening the Wooden Gallery in Chicago in 1980. As well as large scale wooden sculptures, he also produces works of bronze and stone. Kenar may be best known for religious sculpture and liturgical furnishings throughout the United States, including works in Chicago such as the Millennium Doors at Holy Trinity Church, Afrocentric furniture at St. Sabina Church, the holy water font at Loyola University's Madonna della Strada Chapel and the crucifix at St. Malachy Parish in Brownsburg, Indiana. In 2005, in response to owners who do not clean up after their dogs in his neighborhood, Kenar installed a piece entitled Shit Fountain in front of a residence at 1001 North Wolcott Avenue at Augusta. In an interview with TimeOut Chicago, Kenar noted that no one complained to him about the fountain, a three-foot-high column of concrete and sandstone with an immediately recognizable coiled mound of bronze on top.

Forecast

Forecast, 1982

John Henry

University of Chicago campus

5801 South Ellis Avenue

            This piece was donated to the University of Chicago through the Irving Schweiger Memorial Fund, in honor of Schweiger (1919-1982), a professor of business. Constructed of black painted aluminum, it is a small but typical example of John Henry’s work, characterized by the use of metal beams joined into fanciful constructions. Along with Henry’s Arris, the 47-foot long yellow composition that greets drivers entering the Loop from the south on Cermak Road near McCormick Place, the 1984 work Bridgeport welcomes visitors to the Thompson Center in downtown Chicago.

            One of the most controversial works by Henry in the Chicago area was located on private property and generated much discussion. In 2011, homeowner John Novak of Novak Construction Company installed a 40-foot tall work by Henry entitled Chevron, formerly housed at the Orlando Museum of Art, in a walled courtyard at his house on Burling Street and Armitage Avenue. A blue sculpture that had been described as “windmill like,” brought forth a range of responses from its Lincoln Park neighbors, including surprise, anger and delight. 
          In 2013, attorneys for the city of Chicago filed a public nuisance lawsuit against Novak on behalf of neighbors who were concerned about the “impact of the statue on the character of the neighborhood.” Novak agreed to move the work to another location, possibly a satellite campus of Northeastern Illinois University. It was reported that Novak later backed out of that deal. By July 2013, the work was removed. 

Darius and Girenas Memorial

Darius and Girenas Memorial, 1935

Raoul Josset and Charles Koncevec

Marquette Park

West of South California Avenue and south of West 67^th Street

            One of the few Art Deco style monuments located in the Chicago park system, this memorial was dedicated by the Lithuanian community to two Lithuanian-American pilots who attempted to establish a record by flying from New York to Kaunas, Lithuania in July, 1933. Captain Stephen Darius and Lieutenant Stanley Girenas served in the United States military in the fight against Germany during World War I and, upon their return, they began planning for their trans-Atlantic attempt. Unfortunately, their plane crashed in northern Germany, only 400 miles short of their destination, and both died upon impact.

            The Lithuanian consul chose sculptor Raoul Josset, a French immigrant living on Chicago’s North side, to create the bronze relief portraits of the two pilots as well as the modernistic globe above that outlines their flight path. Chicago architect Charles Koncevec designed the polished granite structure that frames the globe, portraits and curved railing with the dedication in sleek lettering. At the dedication ceremony in July of 1935, 40,000 people were gathered in Marquette Park.