Cool Globes – Public Art as Vaudeville

The cows, the horses, the flamingos, the gators, the swans and now – the Globes – well Cool Globes. ( Great marketing pun. ) Home of the first American fiberglass on parade, Chicago puts the first “content” on the fun vaudeville displays. Called Vaudeville since the works are full of mild humor, bad puns, mediocre get-ups, gaudy colors, shiny things and a lot of noise. The events are the only American visual art displays that include artists of all ilk – museum, gallery, crafts, amateur, children and untrained celebrities. We all claim to be democratic so it’s good to have an artworld version.
The best fiberglass on parade was the 2003 swans of Lakeland, Florida. The quiet placement in the green around the downtown lakes seemed unforced. The very pretty works made a pleasant stroll in the mild winter.

Cool Globes in Newsweek
Chicago’s content -Global Warming Solutions – is a new twist. Both for the content at all and for the utilization of an idea, not a bovine, etc, to symbolize the city. Mayor Richard Daley has moved diligently and quickly to match Seattle’s Mayor Greg Nickels and others in civic bending toward the reduction of green house gas emissions. The project has already generate the media attention that pleases Daley with previews in Newsweek. The exhibition on the Chicago waterfront runs from June 1 to September.
Exhibitions – private, public and illegal – in which artists respond to social or political issues has been around most of the 20th century with much more frequency after the Vietnam War. After many anti-war and feminist exhibitions, some art groups such as “Group Material” in the 1980s made an art of asking artists to make art. I personally come from this generation artist “askers” with exhibitions about homelessness, eviction, public art and US-Soviet Relations.

Artists Yair Engel and Mitch Levin in the Local Suburban Papers
I have no idea about the quality of the works in Chicago, but I am amazed that an exhibition of political commentary and propaganda by artists is completely acceptable. More than acceptable – sponsored by a major basically middle of the road American city. Did Greenpeace or Act-up think they would make political statement part of mainstream art? Did HBO – with Angels in America or The Wire – know that the USA would become more comfortable with social criticism in art?
Yes it is still safe with a theme like Global Warming where only far-off big corporations are sort-of to blame for their ignorance. No direct personal attacks and “solutions” are stressed rather than criticism. But if Chicago can celebrate visual art with a direct communication and narrative purpose, why was the 2006 Art Basel empty of content? Why is every architecture award given to the latest use of new technology? Why does any content in permanent public art need to be explained? Don’t we have a public language regarding society that can place readable stories in the corners and skies of our cities? The time has come to stop fretting about a return to 1980’s post-modern narrative and just start speaking in our visual language.
As far as I know, the first repeating object public art event in Chicago was Full Circle by Suzanne Lacey in 1993. 100 boulders were dropped in the night on Chicago sidewalks with plaques about important women in the history of Chicago. At the time in the city, no monuments or artworks were dedicated to any women. The rocks stayed on the streets for four months (typical fiberglass of parade timeframe) without a permit or civic blessing. The project was provocative in execution – illegally using the public space – and conceptual in visual language. To the critical thinker, the discovery of random boulders – the stuff of Chicago buildings and monuments – lead to all kinds of wandering thoughts. But now the audience for artistic expression has expanded and the visual language more consistent. A new Lacy would speak differently today. I await her appearance.
One Note:
Mayor Daley is apparently changing one of the basic rules of public art program administration. Last Friday, Daley and City Council eliminated the professional and citizen selection panel process. In its place, the City has instituted a program of at least two community meetings (with community identified by the local alderman) to select the art. The Chicago papers think this will send the selection process into the smoke-free back rooms of the politically connected.
Two Information Requests
1. What monuments or artworks to women have been installed since 1993?
2. How does this new Daley selection process work?
Some information here. Paul Klein’s Art Letter Blog provides an assessment and a link to the actual modified Chicago ordinance.

Globe Maker Binns and Painting Warehouse in Spring (photo Bouzide)

First Net Image: Globe by Paul Bouzide and Catherine Schwalbe-Bouzide Photo by Bill Friedman.
Since the second “Cows on Parade” opened in Chicago in 1999 with 300 fiberglass bovines, 39 cities have re-inacted the event worldwide. This year includes Milan, Copenhagen and Istanbul.

Unidentified person in photo from Turkish Daily News
Istanbul Cows on Parade opens on August 1, 2007.