Cars to Giraffes, Recycled Sculpture Par Excellence

If you take walk around lakeview, lincoln park, and even some parts of downtown, you are bound to turn a corner and happen upon a neighborhood street flanked by two giant steel giraffes, or a yard scattered with bears and gorillas. It's a magical Chicago neighborhood moment, and one that I owe to the sculptor, John Kearney.

Kearney got a start as an art student, rummaging through junkyards for readily available sculpture material. What he found were car bumpers. What he made were the opposite of steel and technology: homages to the majesty of the natural world, life-size recreations of megafauna. The giraffes are around roscoe and belmont (I'm not going to tell you where since you have to find them yourself, that's part of the fun). There's a moose downtown on Michigan Avenue. A whole storybook full of characters from the Wizard of Oz border (appropriately) Oz Park. Make sure you get up close and see how he fit the bumpers perfectly into each other to create anatomically accurate figures.



The real jewel in the John Kearney decorative gammut is a house on belden in lincoln park that I can only find when I'm not looking for it. I sware this is true! It's a painted lady, with each victorian embellishment painted a candy color. The yard is littered with sculptures. My guess is home of the artist, but I can't say for sure. I walked by once and saw someone working on the house. I called out to ask a question but he was either deaf of studiously ignored my "excuse me?"s. Sometimes it's better to just appreciate than know, I guess.

City as Playground

This past weekend, I went to see an exhibit at the little known Graham Center in the Gold Coast. Not only was the exhibit fantastic, but the building was a gorgeous Frank Lloyd Wright-style mansion with lovely wooden art deco banisters and stained glass windows. After walking into the foyer of a mansion, you don't necessarily expect to see giant pink blow up balls and rafts. This is the beginning of the What You Can Do With the City exhibit highlighting unique ways that urban dwellers from around the world have managed to overcome the drear of pavement, barriers to loitering, and the serious business-like nature of cities to make them livable gardens and playgrounds.

Each "action" had a book of photos and/or videos displaying and explaining the project in action. I especially enjoyed Yves St Blondeau's thesis project, Wheels Give Super Powers, that put together an entire roller suit to skate board on every conceivable body part through the streets of Paris http://www.metacafe.com/watch/985242/wheel_roller_suit/ and artist Sarah Ross's Foamy Velour Suits That Challenge Authority which attaches foam shapes on the back of a jumpsuit to overcome benches that repel the weary urban pedestrian.

There were seed "guns" that promised to create gardens and a band of hungry Los Angelines who went around harvesting the abundant street produce to create jams and liquors. See it! Be Inspired to do something cool with your friends or merely imagine eating lunch on a giant pink donut.

The exhibit is up through March 31 and the Graham Foundation is only open Wednesday-Saturday from 10-5. So go and check it out before it's gone...

Modern, Massive Mix: Manilow Sculpture Park

I went to sculpture park set in the campus of Governor's State University one of those extremely bright, crisp afternoons which was perfect for viewing the artwork. The whole experience is amazing--wandering through native prairie and coming up gigantic sculpture after gigantic sculpture. There must be at least 25 and plenty to amaze, confuse, and play with. It has a playground feel, each time you see a sculpture you want to run across the path and climb all over it. Really, this will happen to you.

This first picture is of Bruce Naumann's House Divided. One half of the house is filled in with concrete and the other half created sharp angles and stunning views as you walk through the eerie, abandonned space. Here's a beautiful view looking out at the prairie.


Many of the works were bought in the 70's by Manilow himself: a rejected condo installation, a giant coal lump of a spaceship (Flying Saucer, below), Calder-like steel cut-outs. I would argue that the newest pieces are more beguiling. Richard Rezac's Frames, c. 2005 (below), a tiled wall that both contrasts and complements the natural landscape, is impossible to resist, inviting you to explore and walk around. And the brand new installation by Icelandic artist, Steinunn Þórarinsdóttir, is fascinating and completely creepy. The figures are toeing the eerie line, too life-like to take your eyes off for fear they'll start walking around. A glass inset in each figure's breast glows like a heart when the sun hits it, which it did that day. I had to get out of there as quick as I could, but my friend was more fearless and took this video. It's hard to tell the real people from the sculpture. WhhoooOOOoooOO. It's definitely worth the trip and this installation is only on view through September of 2010 so don't delay too long!

The Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park is open all year round and accessible by the Metra. If you ask someone who works in the university, they'll even give you a map of the whole park. Nature, Naumann, nice folks: What more could you ask for?

Surgical Art and Oddities

The old building that houses the International Museum of Surgical Science https://www.imss.org/ on 1524 Lakeshore Drive in Lincoln Park used to be owned by a rich female philanthropist who was into the Red Cross. So, when she died she left the whole mansion to promoting the art of surgery and there are LOTS of creepy old relics. The rooms are organized by country and seem to be gathering dust. There's old pictures of a guy getting his elephantiasis of the scrote cut off and Egyptian head drilling tools c. 1200. There's even a whole room devoted to the history of glasses with dozens of spectacle cases and eye machinery. It is fascinating and creepy, and the best part is that no one is even in the rooms, so you are free to wander around and exclaim in horror without the watchful eye of the security guard.

The pic on the left is from the rotating contemporary exhibit s on display. It is appropriately fascinating and creepy, just like the rest of the museum. The image on the right is from the digital imaging work on the cutting edge of scientific illustration.

Make sure to check out the room of great figures in medicine (above) and the fully detailed apothecary c. 1800 complete with voice over from a dusty pharmacist figurine.

Cars to Cows

I saw these cows grazing in a strip of mechanic shops on Western Ave. at Ardmore. They are no doubt a bit of road flair meant to draw customers to Max's Italian Beef, an old school Chicago beef joint. I love the creative reuse of oil barrels and complete cow essence that comes through despite holes, rust, and a perch on old washtubs. These are amazing and definitely worth checking out! Also, the cows are just a hop skip to Devon St. where you can get some great Indian food if you're not into beef.

As long as you're up in Roger's Park, you might as well make a day of it and continue the tour of outlandish restaurant art. So head east on Devon to SuperDawg drive-in at the corner of Milwaukee and Devon. The drive-in is topped by giant plaster statues of a male and female hot dog, presumably Mr. and Mrs. Superdawg, and real Chicago icons. They have a sort of Fred Flinstone-if-he-was-a-hot-dog look that is more than worth a visit. Plus, people love the 50's style drive through, massive shakes, and of course, the superdawgs. So much weird art, so little time...

Intuit and Henry Darger: Grandaddy of Weird

It wouldn't be fair to start with anyone else but Henry Darger, the big kahuna of the bizarre and Chicago native. He was a reclusive man, fiercely religious who led a humdrum life as a workaday custodian. At night, he wrote and drew absolute tomes of work, one giant story, with four main characters: The Vivian Girls, now forever crystallized in popular culture as a hit indie band. Blah. Anyways, Darger wrote and illustrated crazy adventures from their lives, running away from soldiers and frolicking amongst naked girls with penises. A recreation of his room is free for viewing and open to the public at Intuit: The Center for Outsider and Intuitive Art on Milwaukee Ave., south of Chicago. http://art.org/ They also have a cool exhibit with some crazy folk art needlepoints from the 70's (think satin pools and embroidered bikinis) through the end of the month. Check it out!

Also, stop by the sliver of a bar, the Matchbox, just north of Intuit on Milwaukee, after your visit. It's not called the Matchbox for nothing, it's just a bar and a foot of room behind it, but the gimlets are amazing! House infused gin or vodka, sugar-rimmed, highly alcoholic, and far too delicious. The bartenders give you everything in the shaker, so watch out! However, there are no menus, so you have to ask for the house specials. They also have a fine beer selection and a strange mix of folks. A perfect cap to a Darger viewing.