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The Olmec people existed from approximately 1200BC to 400BC and preceded the Maya and Aztecs. Although much remains unkown about this civilization of people, they are thought to be the first who created religious gathering centers.&nbsp; They are also well known for large stone heads that they produced. Seventeen of these sculptures have been uncovered so far.

Each has individual characteristics and are believed to represent different rulers of the Olmec civilization. If you compare all seventeen of the sculptures, however, you will notice similarities. If you pay close attention, you can see that all 17 of the stone heads are of men who have flat noses, thick cheeks, and somewhat crossed eyes. They also often feature a helmet, which is thought to be for protection&nbsp;in war. The Olmec people believed that the head was what contained the soul and it is for this reason that scholars&nbsp;believe the Olmec artists created sculptures of the head and not the rest of the body.

All seventeen of the original heads were created out of basalt, a type of volcano rock. Olmec number eight is thought to be the most natural and realistic recreations of all 17 sculptures. The original stone head is located in Veracruz, Mexico at the Museum of Anthropology in Xalapa. Other replicas of number eight are located in Texas at the International Museum of Art and Science and in Utah at the Cultural Celebration Center.&nbsp;

The Olmec Head #8 by  Ignacio Perez
Solano

Located in the Field Museum lawn of the Art Museum Campus, this piece is a replica of the structures made by the Olmec people in 1300 BC. It was created by the artist, Ignacio Perez Solano, and donated by the people of Veracruz, Mexico to the City of Chicago in 2000. It weighs an impressive 1700 pounds and stands 7’3 feet tall. 

Replica of Colossal Olmec Head #8

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Chicago is home to numerous monuments, sculptures, and public art installations. This walking tour makes a loop around Millennium and Grant Park with stops at some of the park's monuments and works of art. The tour reaches its halfway point as it moves by the Shedd Aquarium and Field Museum, at which point the tour turns north towards the  Art Institute of Chicago and returns to the starting place while stopping at a variety of landmarks on the way. 

Born in India, Anish Kapoor (b. 1954) has lived and worked in London since the 1970s. Kapoor has recently emerged as one of the most influential sculptors of his generation. His work represents a fascination with darkness and light, radiance, and fluid reflections. Cloud Gate is his first outdoor permanent installation in the United States.Cloud Gate stands thirty-three feet high and sixty-six feet long. Made of 168 stainless steel plates that were created in California over a period of two years, the sculpture was assembled on site in Chicago. With 2200 lineal feet of continuous welding, Cloud Gate received “The Extraordinary Welding Award” from the American Welding Society.



Though initially estimated to cost $6 million, Millennium Park’s iconic sculpture ended up costing nearly four times that figure. Private and corporate donations covered the entire cost of the artwork. Mayor Richard M. Daley declared May 15, 2006, the day of its official dedication, as&nbsp;“Cloud Gate Day.” In celebration, jazz trumpeter Orbert Davis composed “Fanfare for Cloud Gate” for the ceremonies.

Cloud Gate is British artist Anish Kapoor's first public outdoor work installed in the United States. Though commonly known throughout Chicago as “The Bean” because of its kidney-bean shape, Cloud Gate was so christened when it debuted in 2006, two years after installation began. Kapoor's 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect Chicago’s famous skyline and the clouds above. The reflections of the city and the people surrounding the sculpture are equally fascinating. The Bean grew rapidly into one of Chicago’s major landmarks, up there with the Hancock Tower, the Chicago River, the Willis Tower, Navy Pier, and Wrigley Field. In fact, it is Chicago’s No. 2 tourist attraction, thanks in part to its reflective surface that simplifies selfie photographs. The sculpture is a major feature in the city’s Millennium Park and stands next to Jaume Plensa's Crown Foundation (installed in 2004), another favorite for its constant monumental video feed.

Cloud Gate, "The Bean"

The pavilion&nbsp;was named in honor of Hyatt hotel owner Jay Pritzker who contributed to the construction of this facility. Despite the donation, many residents&nbsp;opposed the naming of the facility&nbsp;because it replaced a previous bandshell that had been named in honor of labor leader James Petrillo. The Petrillo Music Shell had a long tradition of offering free performances, a tradition that has encouraged the city to offer many free events at the Jay Pritzker Pavillion.&nbsp;The pavilion was designed by Frank Gehry and is classified as a work of art in order to get around the city's height restrictions for structures within Grant Park. The pavilion was redesigned several times as part of the effort to demonstrate that it was more of a work of art than a building. This redesign led to a budget increase and new features to the layout that caused the pavilion&nbsp;to be finished four years behind schedule and opened July 16, 2004, with a celebration that filled the park and was attended by hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans.&nbsp;&nbsp;The pavilion is known for acoustics that come close to the sound of an indoor theater and is home to the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus and home to special events throughout the year. To celebrate the new pavilion, tickets were free for all concerts held in the pavilion's&nbsp;first year. This lasted until Tori Amos held the first rock concert here; August 31, 2005. The pavilion&nbsp;is located next to Harris Theater, an indoor theater that is mostly underground within the park.&nbsp;

Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park opened in 2004 and is home to the Grant Park Music Festival and many other events throughout the year. The pavilion includes seating for four thousand with a capacity of another 7,000 in the lawn section. The stage of the pavilion is made up of complete stainless steel and also holds a loading dock and backstage facilities. The Jay Pritzker Pavilion is known to be the home of the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and the Grant Park Music Festival. Chicago Park District and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs presents this festival every year. 

Jay Pritzker Pavilion

BP Bridge was the first bridge designed by famed architect Frank Gehry to be constructed. Gehry had designed bridges previously, although none of his prior designs had ever been built. “Millennium Park project manager Edward Uhlir said ‘Frank is just the cutting edge of the next century of architecture,’ and noted that no other architect was being sought.” Gehry designed the bridge with the assistance of Robert Sinn, as well as other structural engineers from the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings &amp; Merrill. Work began in June of 1999, and the final bridge was opened to the public on July 16, 2004 at a cost of $14.5 million. Its design fits seamlessly with the rest of the modern Millennium Park, particularly with the form and materials of the adjacent Pritzker Pavilion, which was also Gehry's creation. 9,000 stainless steel shingles were used as the “skin” of the BP Bridge because of their lightweight design, and are smaller versions of those found at the Pritzker Pavilion. The bridge was designed to decrease noise from traffic on Columbus Drive, and Gehry also included a hardwood deck rather than concrete because he thought as the wood weathered, it would be more appealing. Gehry changed the design of the bridge multiple times but came up with his final plan in 2000. The initial design of the bridge was only supposed to be 170 feet but was not approved by Mayor Richard Dailey. In response, Gehry developed 10 more designs, some of which were scrapped immediately due to accessibility concerns. The final design of the bridge removed the traditional handrails but maintained safety with waist-high walls and a maximum slope of five percent. This feature allows access for people of all ages and physical abilities. Gehry use of sheet metal allows the bridge to hold a heavy load without problems within the structure caused by its weight. The overall aesthetic of the bridge and Gehry's architectural style is known for the illusions created by the sheet metal and abstract design.

Built by Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Frank Gehry and opened on July 16, 2004, the BP Bridge is a unique stainless steel pedestrian bridge that crosses downtown Chicago's Columbus Drive. It connects Daley Bicentennial Plaza and Millennium Park, which allows pedestrians views of Lake Michigan, obscured only by Lakeshore Drive, as well as the Chicago skyline, Grant Park, and Maggie Daley Park. It spans an impressive 925 feet long and 20 feet wide and with its many curves and silver, shiny color, many believe it resembles a snake. It was named after BP energy, who donated $5 million to its construction.

BP Bridge

The people who created the garden were perennial plant designer Piet Oudolf, landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson, and set designer Robert Israel who collaborated and aimed to relate their plants of botanic history to the city of Chicago. It was one of the first projects Piet Oudolf has established in North America. He would later become famous for the garden’s design and continued to collaborate in other public projects such as Battery Park in New York. The purpose of the garden’s design is to reflect Chicago’s history through the its native and local resources. It builds from Chicago's marsh origins and will continuously rise higher. Lurie Garden was built on top of an underground parking garage and is over-structured with risen landforms. It was mainly made from limestone, granite, and geofoam that were used for landforms or curbing. Other materials include Naval Brass, patinized architectural bronze, and powder coated steel.&nbsp;&nbsp;The garden is split into two different sections called the Dark and Light plate. The Light plate is a warm and bright meadow that has raised pathways for visitors to walk on. It has a more controlled structure than the Dark plate. The Dark plate is an oak marsh along a river that is punched up from below; it has an array of prosperous plants. Moreover, it was previously a shoreline at the Chicago river. The two plates are separated by the Seam, a wooden boardwalk that hovers over a waterway. A couple of popular features are the fifteen-foot Shoulder Hedge, Extrusion Plaza, and the West Hedge. The Shoulder Hedge surrounds the garden's interior and serves to protect the plants from heavy crowds of pedestrians. The Extrusion Plaza connects Monroe street and the Exelon Pavilions and allows visitors to freely move to the Pritzer Pavilion and other sections of Millennium Park. The West Hedge visually presents a Greek story and details the futuristic theme of the garden. In the evenings lights would illuminate the garden and create a beautiful and captivating experience for the tourists.&nbsp;

Lurie Garden is a 5- acre urban rooftop garden that was opened in 2004. The garden is located in the southeast area of Millennium Park, at Monroe Street. It was worth over $10 million dollars to construct and has adopted the symbol of Chicago’s motto, “Urbs in Horto" (City in a Garden). The garden is famous for its urban landscape and massive variety of beautiful native plants. It is an ideal haven for the local wildlife as well. 


Lurie Garden

During the height of the Great Depression, the Chicago Park District&nbsp;under the direction of James C. Petrillo arranged for&nbsp;free concerts to be held&nbsp;in its expansive Grant Park along the city's&nbsp;lake shore. In 1935, The Grant Park Band Shell was built as a place to hold these concerts with the intention of improving the spirits of its citizens during a dire economic time.1&nbsp; Petrillo served as the head of the Chicago &nbsp;Park District from 1934 to 1945, but evidence of&nbsp;his love of music includes his&nbsp;involvement with the American Federation of Musicians. Indeed,&nbsp;he served as federation president from 1940 to 1958. In 1975, the city renamed the&nbsp;shell, Petrillo,&nbsp;to honor the man who brought free music to the City of Chicago.2&nbsp;Three years later, it was dismantled and moved to another side of Grant Park.3&nbsp; <div> </div><div>The expansion of the city's lakefront parks, including Millennium Park, Northerly Island, and the renovated museum campus, have lessened the usage of the older Petrillo shell. However, it still serves as the setting for&nbsp;an array of concerts and events. In the past, it has been the stage for the Chicago Bulls' six&nbsp;National Basketball Association Championship celebrations&nbsp;during the 1990s, Lollapalooza events, many Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts, blues and jazz festivals,&nbsp;and more.&nbsp;&nbsp;As well, many historically significant events took place at the&nbsp;bandshell, including&nbsp;a July, 1942&nbsp;celebration to honor the city's 10,000th US Navy recruit. The color guard was at the bandshell with a 500-sailor crew saluting them from Navy Pier.</div>

This outdoor amphitheater located in Grant Park was commissioned in 1931 by Mayor of Chicago Anton Cermak. It was originally located in the South end of the park and was relocated in 1978. It is known most commonly as the Petrillo Bandshell, but is also known as the James C. Petrillo Music Shell or the Petrillo Music Shell.

Petrillo Music Shell

During the early years of the Great Depression, many school boards responded by cutting salaries and terminating the employment of teachers. Believing that no household should have two wage earners if&nbsp;jobs were scarce, many schools began their budget reductions by&nbsp;firing&nbsp;married women. Many districts enacted across-the-board pay cuts. For example, teachers in Los Angeles&nbsp;saw their pay reduced by ten percent. The cuts were even larger in Chicago, where the average teacher saw their pay reduced by almost 25%. Making matters worse, the teachers were paid not with cash, but with special notes printed by the city that were redeemable when businesses paid their share of taxes. In an era when US currency was backed by gold, these tax-anticipation&nbsp;warrants were less valued and banks would not&nbsp;redeem them for their full face value. All of that seemed even less important to many teachers throughout Chicago when the Board simply failed to issue paychecks at all throughout many of the months between 1931 and 1933. By 1933, the average teacher in Chicago was owed six months of back pay. Frustrated by the failure of their union leaders to secure relief, many Chicago teachers built their own organizations and elected leaders who were willing to take to the streets in protest. The Volunteer Emergency Committee (VEC) led by 32-year old gym teacher John M. Fewkes became the most significant of these ad hoc organizations. Fewkes and other members of the VEC recognized that businesses throughout the city were still earning profits but responding to&nbsp;the chaos of the Great Depression by hoarding money and refusing to pay taxes. While the police and other public employees continued to be paid each week, Fewkes asked, why was the Board of Education unable to pay teachers?&nbsp;&nbsp; Fewkes and other teachers&nbsp;led protest marches throughout the spring of 1933. As awareness of their situation spread, these marches grew to include parents and school children. For the VEC and others, the problem required city leaders to be more aggressive in collecting taxes. In the meantime, they believed, the problem of back-pay&nbsp;might be solved if banks would agree to purchase tax anticipation warrants from the city. &nbsp;&nbsp; Reflecting their love of education, many teachers were reluctant to join a&nbsp;strike that would hurt their students. Even the simple act of&nbsp;joining a protest march on a day when school was not in session was a radical notion for many teachers, who subscribed to the contemporary notion that&nbsp;teachers should maintain a sense of&nbsp;decorum. As the situation worsened and more of their fellow teachers joined the protests, however, teachers like Mary Winifred Cary decided that it was time to "cast aside the cloak of super sensitiveness and mock modesty, and march forward in the army of the mistreated."&nbsp; &nbsp; When the teacher's week of spring vacation began on Monday April 24th, five thousand teachers gathered here in Grant Park for a rally and march. Organizing themselves into five separate groups, the teachers marched on downtown banks that had refused to buy tax warrants. Not content to merely protest outside of the banks, as they had done in the past, hundreds of teachers physically occupied the downtown banks until the police physically removed them from the premises. Two days later, several thousand teachers occupied and severely damaged the interior lobby of the Chicago Title and Trust. This violence against property quickly escalated to violence against people, as police clubbed protesters--many of whom fought back by throwing lobby items at the police. The situation looked dire on Saturday May 13, then 15,000 teachers assembled here at Grant Park. Recognizing that many of the protesters were ready to commit vandalism in hopes of forcing city leaders to address their concerns, Fewkes addressed the crowd. Referring to an agreement to pay the teachers, a plan that had not yet been funded, Fewkes assured the crowd that they would soon receive full payment in cash. Although many of Chicago's&nbsp;teachers would not receive full payment for another year,&nbsp;Fewkes and other teachers were able to prevent most of the&nbsp;protesters from committing acts of violence against banks and other institutions throughout the 1933 and 1934. When the leading teacher's unions of the city merged in 1937 to become the Chicago Teacher's Union, the former gym teacher became the organization's president. Fewkes would later become the leader of the American Federation of Teachers.&nbsp;&nbsp;

At this location during the early years of the Great Depression, teachers throughout the city met to protest the actions of the Chicago Board of Education. Between 1931 and 1933, the Board not only cut salaries and arbitrarily fired teachers, they regularly failed to pay teachers at all. Many of the teachers who met at Grant Park had not been paid for months on end due to the failure of city leaders to compel banks and other businesses to pay their taxes. 

Chicago Teachers Strike of 1933

Designed by architect Edward H. Bennett along with French
sculptor Marcel Loyau and engineer Jacques H. Lambert, the Clarence F.
Buckingham Memorial Fountain opened to the public in May 1927.&nbsp; Bennett wanted the fountain “to serve as the
park’s formal focal point without obstructing the views of Lake Michigan”
(“History”).&nbsp;&nbsp;Kate Sturges Buckingham donated one million dollars to the city of Chicago&nbsp;for the fountain’s
construction and dedicated it to the memory of&nbsp;her brother, Clarence F. Buckingham, an avid art collector and Chicago enthusiast who died in 1913.The fountain’s design was in part&nbsp;inspired by the Latona Basin at Versailles and features a series of four granite and marble basins that combine to form a quatrefoil motif. The fountain was mannually
operated until 1980 when it went fully computerized. Originally this&nbsp;computer that controlled the fountain&nbsp;was located
in Atlanta; in 1994, however it&nbsp;moved to its current location
in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

One of the largest fountains in the world, the Clarence F. Buckingham Memorial Fountain is nestled in the center of Chicago’s Grant Park.  The fountain serves to represent Lake Michigan: the fountain’s enormity echoes the lake’s massive scope, and the fountain’s four sets of sea horses represent the four states that Lake Michigan borders.  

Every hour on the hour, the fountain spouts a 20-minute water display thanks to a combination of three different pumps, 134 jets, and 820 lights. The hourly showcase includes a center jet that releases a stream of water that reaches 150 feet into the air and, at dusk, is accompanied by light and music.  

Clarence F. Buckingham Memorial Fountain

Hilgemann named this sculpture after one done by Max Ernst&nbsp;in the 1930s. Hilgemann referenced the birdlike feel of&nbsp;this Surrealist artist's earlier work by suggesting that&nbsp;structure's points, which appeared beak like, made it similar to Ernst’s installation.

Everdt Hilgemann was born in Germany in 1938 and&nbsp;studied art at the University of Saarland. When he began creating art in 1959, he started with wooden wall pieces; since 1984, though,&nbsp;Hilgemann has switched to metallic media. He has also become compelled by the use of natural energy in his sculpture, using air and vacuums to render many of his forms.&nbsp;

To create Habakuk, Hilgemann employed a vacuum pump which pulled the air out of the steel cubes, a method he calls the&nbsp;“Implosion” process. What Hilgemann enjoyed most about this type of art was that even thought it was thought out, there was always parts that occurred without his control. Because he was using nature, there was always an element of surprise in his work.&nbsp;

This stainless steel structure was produced by Everdt Hilgemann in 2014 and first came to Chicago in 2016 as part of ExpoChicago. It stands 20 feet high and 6.5 feet wide on Lake Shore Drive. Prior to its Chicago’s location, it had resided on Park Avenue in New York City. It is made up of three different sections that have been welded together and shaped by the use of vacuum pumps.

Habakuk (Homage to Max Ernst) (2014)

History of the Shedd Aquarium The birth of the Shedd Aquarium dates back to prominent Chicagoan and president of the department store giant Marshall Field &amp; Company, John G. Shedd. Due to his gratitude for the city of Chicago and his adoration of European-style aquariums, Shedd donated upwards of $2 million and started the not-for-profit Shedd Aquarium Society in 1924. The main goal of the Society was to construct and maintain a museum of aquatic life for entertainment, educational, and scientific purposes. With a passion for architectural and a devoted study of aquariums in Europe and the U.S., Shedd gave donated another $1 million.&nbsp;Although Shedd died in 1926, the board of directors of the Society broke ground in 1927 and the museum opened to the public in 1930. The acclaimed architectural firm Graham, Anderson, Probst &amp; White, which helped build the Field Museum and the Wrigley Building, created the Shedd Aquarium using a neoclassical temple style of white marble and terracotta. The original building, known as Neptune’s Temple, featured an octagonal shape that gave extra room for reserve areas, feed rooms, and an animal hospital.&nbsp;To bring seawater into the early aquarium, over 20 railroad cars made round trips from Key West to transport more than one million gallons of seawater, and the aquarium gained international recognition in 1933 after the Century of Progress World’s Fair, which was held in Chicago. By 1987, Shedd Aquarium was officially placed on the National Register of Historic Places.1
Exhibits and Animal Life 
Although the architectural excellence at the Shedd Aquarium draws thousands of enthusiasts every year, the true glory of this aquarium comes from its wide diversity of animal life and a myriad of exciting and interactive exhibits. Visitors to the aquarium can discover both common and rare fish species close to home or from faraway exotic places.&nbsp;However, the Shedd Aquarium does not solely feature marine animals, as the aquarium showcases the biodiversity found in water-based ecosystems. In addition to turtles and sea otters, visitors can also discover tiny monkeys and frogs who live in the Amazonian ecosystem as well as the world’s rarest iguana species that was found on a desert isle in the Bahamas. The other highly popular exhibits include Amazon Rising, Caribbean Reef, Abbott Oceanarium, Polar Play Zone, At Home on the Great Lakes, and Wild Reef.2&nbsp;
Aquarium Experiences 
The Shedd Aquarium does more than just expose visitors to the diversity of marine life. A variety of “experiences” at the aquarium capture interest and spark the imagination through touch, learning, and feeling. For example, within Shedd’s Aquatic Show, visitors can actually hear and see how beluga whales, sea lions, and dolphins are cared for and trained by Shedd’s expert trainers and animal care specialists.&nbsp;Other experiences at the aquarium include touching stingrays, a 4-D Experience, sustainable seafood dinners, nighttime aquatic adventures, and much more. Visitors looking for a more in-depth, personal experience should ask about Shedd’s shark feeding tours, its behind-the-scenes tour, its beluga whale proposal experience (which includes a picture-perfect moment for proposing to a loved one), and even a 30-minute penguin experience.3&nbsp;

Opening on May 30, 1930, Shedd Aquarium has grown to include exhibits of over 1,500 species ranging from the rare and endangered deep ocean varieties to dolphins and whales. At one time, Shedd stood as the largest indoor aquarium in the world, boasting over five million gallons of water. This was also the first aquarium to feature a permanent saltwater fish collection. 

Shedd Aquarium 

The Field Museum traces its roots back to the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. Leading up to the Exposition, directors and donors decided to use the some of the exhibits and the fair itself as the impetus to create a natural history museum. The effort was largely endowed by department store magnate Marshall Field, with additional support from leading businessmen such as George Pullman. After the fair was over, they decided to house the new museum in the Palace of Fine Arts Building, a&nbsp;grand structure that had been a part of the fair's&nbsp;famous White City. The museum opened in 1894 as the Columbian Museum. &nbsp;Eleven years later it was renamed the Field Museum, in honor of Marshall Field. In 1920 the museum was moved from its first home to one that it occupies today. The museum, as well&nbsp;as being a natural history museum, is also a cultural museum, with exhibits on Native American, Pacific, African, and Asian cultures. Perhaps the most famous thing on display at the museum is Sue, a thirteen-foot-tall Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton that came to the Field Museum in 2000. &nbsp;Other permanent exhibitions include Inside Ancient Egypt, Evolving Planet, Underground Adventure, Restoring Earth, The Crown Family Playlab, The Ancient Americans, Grainger Hall of Gems, The Tsavo Lions, Gidwitz Hall of Birds, Hall of Jades, McDonalds Fossil Prep Lab, DNA Discovery Center, Pawnee Earth Lodge, Pacific Spirits, Maori Meeting House, Africa, and the&nbsp;Project Hyena Diorama.

The Field Museum explores the history of life on Earth and takes visitors on a “journey of scientific discovery.” With over 24 million specimens, dozens of galleries, and a collection of nearly 300,000 books, the Field Museum is one of the largest museums in the world. Highlights of the museum include some of the world's most valuable gems, ancient hieroglyphs and two-dozen Egyptian mummies, rare Chinese jade artifacts that are over 8000 years old, and Sue, the most complete and best-preserved fossil remain of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the world. There are numerous exhibits and programs for children, as well as outreach programs for schools and evening lectures for adults. 

Field Museum of Natural History

Norman Tait’s ancestors were part of the Nisga’s Tsimshain group. They are Native Americans whose population currently totals 10,000. Tait was from British Columbia, in a village called Kincolith. Most reside in either Alaska or British Columbia.&nbsp; They are avid hunters and fishers, and respected as powerful warriors. There are a total of fourteen bands within the Tsimshain society. Each of these bands, or tribes, have their own independent leadership.The story behind Tait’s totem pole came from an Tsimshiam legend. It was said that a group of five Tsimshiam men gathered together to go on a hunter, which was typical of their people. They were hunting for beaver, and were successful, although two managed to except. They had brought along a younger brother, who was still too young to hunt on her is own. He noticed the two beavers escaping and offered to help them home. Once he arrived at the beaver’s home, he watched as the beavers took off disguises. To his surprise, he discovered the beavers were actually humans. He went back to his brothers and told him the news. Since then, the family never hunted beavers again and adopted the beaver as their family symbol.

Tait The totem pole was one of the projects done to celebrate the opening of the “Maritime Peoples of the Arctic and Northwest Coast,'' an exhibition at the Field Museum. Tait used a tree which was over five hundred years old to create the totem pole out of. The original tree had been donated to Tait by the Council of Forest Industries of British Columbia. The totem has been coated with zinc and linseed oil for protection.&nbsp;

Created by Norman Tait in 1982, this totem pole is located right outside the Field Museum, in Chicago. It stands 55 feet tall and was carved out of cedar.  Tait wanted this structure to be a representation of his ancestry and how the Tshimshian civilization came to symbolically embrace the beaver. Because they were carved out of cedar, which decays, there are no original totem poles from the Tsimshian group. 

Big Beaver by Norman Tait, 1982

The full name of this art piece&nbsp;is “Urban Buddha: Be the flower, not the Bee.” Norbu is passionate about educating people about and preventing environmental destruction. He is from Tibet, where deforestation is prominent and wants to alert people to this ongoing problem. With this piece, he not only tries to educate, but is also engaging in preservation methods himself by using recycled materials. Written on the plaque is, "The harmony of nature plays a great role in human survival on Earth. We can learn everything from nature and its creation."

Norbu used 3,500 thousand pounds of reclaimed wood for this project. He went one step further, and even used recycled paint for this project. The materials were donated by a company named ReUse Depot.&nbsp; The piece is estimated to be worth over 30,000. 

Norbu’s work is a combination of abstract expressionism and Buddhism. This is evident in the Urban Buddha, with it many bright colors and use of atypical materials. More of Norbu’s art can be viewed at the Worldmuseum in Rotterdam, Netherlands and in Londan at Rossi &amp; Rossi. Sadly, the Urban Buddha is temporary. It was given an initial 6 month contract and is eligible to 6 mores proceeding that.&nbsp;

Created by Tashi Norbu, Urban Buddha is located within the skate park of Chicago's Grant Park. It is the artist's first work on display in the United States and was placed in October 2016. The sculpture is fifteen feet tall and comprised of repurposed wood and recycled paint. Norbu created this piece for the purpose of educating the public about the harms of deforestation occurring.

Urban Buddha

Born in 1930, Magdalena lived through WWII and the 45 years of Soviet rule that followed.&nbsp; Highly influenced by this time, she began creating the sculptures of Agora in the 1970s.&nbsp; The torsos were first made with burlap and resin before Magdalena began using bronze, steel, and iron.&nbsp; She is frequently exhibited in museums and other public spaces, but Agora is her largest permanent installation. The artists donated the artwork's design and worked with a group of Polish artists offered to construct the pieces in Poland. Agora was brought to life by the Polish Ministry of Culture and a Polish private foundation.

Nestled on the southwest side of Chicago’s Grant Park is Agora, a sculpture composed of 106 headless torsos made of cast iron standing 9 ft tall.  The torso sculptures are placed walking in groups or standing still.  Agora, Greek for “meeting place,” was donated by sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz along with the Polish Ministry of Culture and private donors.  

Agora

Aaron Montgomery Ward was born into a large family on February 17, 1844 in Chatham, New Jersey. While he was still a boy, his father moved the family to Niles, Michigan. Ward attended public schools until the age of fourteen, when he began working a series of odd jobs to support the family. Later, he moved to the town of St. Joseph, Michigan, where he found work as a clerk in a general store. In only three years, Ward became the store’s manager.  In 1865, Ward moved to Chicago. There, he worked first as a clerk in a general store and then as an itinerant salesman. While traveling across the Midwest on business in the late 1860s, Ward became acquainted with the region’s farmers, who resented middlemen who drove up the prices of retail goods. He also observed that railroads were increasingly connecting rural areas to major urban centers. Seeing a business opportunity, Ward started a mail-order company that purchased dry goods at wholesale prices and then sold them directly to consumers at a low markup. The company’s first catalog, issued in 1872, was a one-page list of roughly 150 items. Three years later, Ward introduced another novel concept, the money-back guarantee. Despite selling at low margins, Montgomery Ward &amp; Company steadily grew. By 1886, its catalog was 240 pages in length and contained approximately 10,000 items. Annual sales reached $1 million by 1888 and soared to $40 million by 1913.  During the final decades of his life, Ward stepped away from the day-to-day operations of the company and refocused his energies elsewhere. In 1886, he turned management of the company over to his brother-in-law, George Thorne, who purchased a half interest in the business back in 1873 for $500. In 1890, Ward embarked on a grueling personal crusade to prevent the City of Chicago and private interests from developing the portion of Chicago’s lakefront that is now Grant Park (known as Lake Park before 1901). While many Chicagoans hoped to see civic buildings and museums constructed along the city’s lakefront, Ward, on the other hand, desired to preserve the park and thus the area’s open, relatively undeveloped state. Despite intense public criticism, which damaged his popularity, and multiple lawsuits, which cost him copious amounts of his own money, he persevered and in 1910 the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Three years later, Ward died at the age of sixty-nine.  Four decades after Ward’s death, Joseph Kennedy, patriarch of the famous American political family, commissioned eight, four-times-life-sized bronze busts of famous American merchants. The artworks came to comprise the Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame in Chicago. Hired to create the busts of Frank Winfield Woolworth and Aaron Montgomery Ward was Russian-American sculptor Milton Horn. In either the late 1980s or the early 1990s, Montgomery Ward &amp; Company commissioned Horn to recreate his original bronze bust of the company founder, but on a much smaller scale. With the help of the Montgomery Ward Foundation and the Friends of the Parks, the bust was installed in Grant Park in 1993. Six years later, it was moved from its original location to make way for the construction of Millennial Park. In 2005, the bust was placed in its current location in Grant Park.

This bust commemorates pioneering American businessman Aaron Montgomery Ward (1844-1913). A native of New Jersey, he later settled in Chicago and founded Montgomery Ward & Company, the first mail-order company in the United States, in 1872. Three years later, Ward introduced another novel concept, the money-back guarantee. Between 1890 and 1910, he fought to prevent the City of Chicago and private interests from developing the portion of the city’s lakefront that is now Grant Park. Despite intense public criticism, which damaged his popularity, and multiple lawsuits, which cost him copious amounts of his own money, Ward persevered and in 1910 the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Three years later, he died at the age of sixty-nine. Four decades after Ward’s death, Joseph Kennedy, patriarch of the famous American political family, commissioned eight, four-times-life-sized bronze busts of famous American merchants. The artworks came to comprise the Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame in Chicago. Hired to create the busts of Frank Winfield Woolworth and Aaron Montgomery Ward was Russian-American sculptor Milton Horn. In either the late 1980s or the early 1990s, Montgomery Ward & Company commissioned Horn to recreate his original bronze bust of the company founder, but on a much smaller scale. With the help of the Montgomery Ward Foundation and the Friends of the Parks, the bust was installed in Grant Park in 1993. Six years later, it was moved from its original location to make way for the construction of Millennial Park. In 2005, the bust was placed in its current location in Grant Park.

Aaron Montgomery Ward Bust

John Alexander Logan was born in what is now the town of Murphysboro in Jackson County, Illinois on February 9, 1826. His father was a physician and farmer who also made a successful foray into politics, occupying a seat in the Illinois state legislature for almost a decade. After attending Shiloh College, Logan served in the Mexican War as a second lieutenant, but did not see combat. He then studied law at the University of Louisville, graduating in 1851, and was admitted to the bar the following year. Between 1853 and 1857, Logan served in the Illinois state legislature and as prosecuting attorney for the Third Judicial District of Illinois. In 1858, running as a Democrat, he won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Two years later, Logan won reelection.  Despite being a proslavery Democrat who strongly supported fugitive slave laws and vehemently opposed abolitionism, Logan possessed a deep attachment to the Union and refused to stand idly by as some southerners attempted to dissolve it. In the summer of 1861, he accompanied a Michigan regiment to northern Virginia and participated in the First Battle of Bull Run. After the engagement, Logan resigned his seat in Congress and returned to Illinois. There, he raised the Thirty-First Illinois Infantry and became its colonel. Affectionately known to his men as “Black Jack” because of his dark hair and complexion, Logan led the Illinois regiment during the Battles of Belmont, Fort Henry, and Fort Donelson. During the last engagement, he was severely wounded. While recovering from his injury, Logan received a promotion to the rank of brigadier general. When he returned to the front he did so as a bridge commander in VII Corps of the Army of the Tennessee. By March 1863, Logan had received a promotion to the rank of major general and was given command of a division. With his division, he participated in the Vicksburg campaign. That October, Logan took command of XV Corps, which he led during the Atlanta campaign in the spring and summer of 1864. In the fall of 1864, he returned to his home state to campaign for President Lincoln’s reelection bid. That December, Logan resumed command of XV Corps, and led it for the remainder of the war.  After the war, Logan reentered the political arena. Running as a Republican, he won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1866. Logan served in the House until 1871, when the Illinois legislature selected him to be one of the state’s two U.S. senators. In 1876, the state legislature did not reelect him. Three years later, however, Logan secured another term in the Senate, serving until his death on December 26, 1886. Two years prior, in 1884, he was the Republican nominee for vice president of the United States. Logan’s running mate, James Blaine, lost the presidential election that year to the Democratic nominee and governor of New York, Grover Cleveland.  In addition to resuming his career in politics after the war, Logan became an unflinching advocate for Union war veterans. In 1866, he helped establish the Grand Army of the Republic. While serving as the organization’s first commander in chief, Logan issued General Order No. 11 in 1868, which designated May 30 as a day to decorate the graves of Union soldiers. Known as Decoration Day, it was renamed Memorial Day in 1882. Memorial Day became an official federal holiday in 1971 and observance was moved to the last Monday in May. Following Logan’s death in 1886, the Illinois state legislature allocated funds for the erection of a monument in Chicago in his honor. Designed by sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Alexander Phimister Proctor, the monument consists of a bronze equestrian statue of the Civil War general on a granite pedestal. The sculpture depicts Logan sitting confidently upright on his steed, gazing into the distance. His left hand tightly clutches the reigns while his right holds high a flag. Dedicated in 1897 in what is now Grant Park, the monument sits atop a grassy hill containing an empty subterranean burial vault, which was intended to house the remains of both Logan and his wife.

This Grant Park monument commemorates lawyer, statesman, and Civil War commander, John Alexander Logan (1826-1886). A native of Illinois, he served as a member of the Illinois state legislature and prosecuting attorney for the Third Judicial District of Illinois before winning two terms as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives. During the Civil War, Logan was wounded at the Battle of Fort Donelson in 1862 and eventually rose to the rank of major general in the Union Army. After the conflict, he reentered the political arena as a Republican, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives (1867-1871) and the U.S. Senate (1871-1877 and 1879-1886). In 1884, Logan was the Republican nominee for vice president of the United States. He also headed the Grand Army of the Republic and is often credited as the founder of Decoration Day (now Memorial Day). Following Logan’s death in 1886, the Illinois state legislature allocated funds for the erection of a monument in Chicago in his honor. Designed by sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Alexander Phimister Proctor, the monument consists of a bronze equestrian statue of the Civil War general on a granite pedestal. The sculpture depicts Logan sitting confidently upright on his steed, gazing into the distance. His left hand tightly clutches the reigns while his right holds high a flag. Dedicated in 1897, the monument sits atop a grassy hill containing an empty subterranean burial vault, which was intended to house the remains of both Logan and his wife.

John Alexander Logan Monument

Both men in the sculptures appear to be battling the other, although neither are actually holding a weapon. There is an ongoing myth that the weapons were once attached to the structures, but had been removed. This is untrue. Mestrovic left the weapons from the structure to make the viewer use his or her imagination to envision the bow and arrow and the spear being thrown.

Mestrovic wanted these sculptures to be a representation of Native Americans, their struggle, and their ability to persevere. From the detail in the pieces, you can see how strong and fierce both men were. He wanted to capture the energy and passion that the Native Americans had. He also wanted it to be a reminded of their fight to settle America.

<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow"></a>Ivan Mestrovic was born in Croatia and later became a citizen of the United States in 1954, prior to his death in 1962. He was a very well known and respected sculpture. Mestrovic was the first person to obtain a “One Man Show” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. He worked most often with bronze, wood, and marble and was strongly influenced by Greek styles.

Sitting on both sides of Congress Parkway are two large bronze sculptures of a bowman and spearman, appearing to be battling each other.  They were both created by Ivan Mestrovic in 1926 and dedicated in 1928. They are 17 feet tall and stand on pedestals designed by Holabird & Roche. They appear as an entrance to Grant Park. Mestrovic wanted these sculptures to be a representation of Native Americans, their struggle, and their ability to persevere.  

The Bowman and The Spearman

The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, boasts a collection spanning 5,000 years of artistic expression. The founders of the Art Institute hoped to place a gritty, working-class city on the cultural map and also desired to expose the citizens of Chicago to works of the masters. Their avant-garde spirit led the founders to collect some of the greatest works of art of the late 19th century, and that vision built one of the best Impressionist collections in the world outside of France. The Art Institute continued to grow over the 20th century, and now the museum stands as one of the great encyclopedic art museums in the world.

Built on rubble from the 1871 Chicago fire, the Art Institute was originally founded as the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1879. The name was changed in 1882, and shortly thereafter the institution was already in need of a new home for its expanding collection and growing student body. As the city prepared to dazzle the country as host of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the Art Institute's trustees negotiated with the city's civic bodies for a new structure located on a park site at Michigan Avenue and Adams Street. The design of the classical Beaux-Arts building, by the Boston firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, allowed for the institution's ambitious goals. The Art Institute officially opened on December 8, 1893. Over the years, the museum has grown and continues to grow its collection, its physical plant and its reputation.In May 2009, the Institute opened its newest addition, a 24,000-square-meter Modern Wing, housing renowned Modern and Contemporary masterpieces. This internationally acclaimed Modern Wing designed by Renzo Piano is the largest expansion in AIC’s 130-year history. This signature building features the latest in green museum technology and greatly increased the space dedicated to modern and contemporary art, photography, and architecture and design. The Modern Wing also houses the Ryan Education Center, a state-of-the-art facility placed in a prominent and highly trafficked area of the museum.

The Art Institute of Chicago, established in 1879, is a world-renowned, encyclopedic art museum housing one of the world’s most important permanent collections. The Institute offers around thirty exhibitions a year and its permanent collection of over a quarter million works represents the third largest collection of art in the United States. The Institute is also home to the largest collection of impressionist paintings outside of Paris.

The Art Institute of Chicago

Jaume Plensa was born in 1955 in Barcelona, Catalonia. Catalonia is an autonomous community within Spain. Due to its Statue of Autonomy, it is designated as a nationality. It is a very complicated and contested identity. The Parliament of Catalonia ruled in September 2005 that Catalonia was, by definition, a nation. However, the Spanish Government does not consider this legally binding due to the Spanish Constitution's recognition of the "unity of the Spanish nation." &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Plensa's work, the&nbsp;Crown Fountain and his other public work, seeks to engage and connect with the viewer through expressing dualities in his work and challenging the viewer to engage with them intellectually. These dualities in their literal form (inside/outside, light/dark, front/back) call for the viewer to consider the metaphorical dualities within life and within ourselves. The hybrid nature of his work is heightened by combining conventional sculpture materials (glass, aluminum, bronze) with less conventional materials (water, light, video). This also heightens viewer participation as the viewer is asked to make unusual connections through the viewing of the piece. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Plensa's use of video allows the fountains to remain enjoyable and interactive even in Chicago's frigid winter months when the water is turned off. The use of the "faces" in the video element of the fountain also allow for a representation of the city's diversity. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The fountain has also been a source of controversy, even before it was built. James Wood, the president of the Art Institute of Chicago, along with several other community leaders, thought the towers would be too tall. It was even said that the size of the project was a "pissing contest" to compete with other park features. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

The Crown Fountain is a piece of public art located in Chicago's Millennium Park that opened in July 2004. It was built by Krueck and Sexton Architects and designed by Jaume Plensa, a Catalan artist. The fountain is a Black granite pool with a 50 ft. glass brick tower on either end. The towers display videos of various faces that interact with park goers by squirting water out of their mouths. The water features operate from May to October.

The Crown Fountain- Millennium Park 

While vacationing with his family in Zurich, Switzerland in 1998, Chicago shoe store owner Peter Hanzig saw “Land in Sicht,” a public art display of artificial cows. Following his return to the United States, he contacted Lois Weisberg, commissioner of cultural affairs for the City of Chicago, about creating something similar in the Windy City. The result was “Cows on Parade,” a temporary outdoor public art exhibit that promoted Chicago businesses, supported local artists, and helped charitable organizations. An area business would pay approximately $3,500 to sponsor a cow and the City would select a local artist to decorate it anyway they saw fit. Consequently, no two cows were the same. For their labor, artists would receive $1,000 from the money used to sponsor the faux bovine. By the middle of summer 1999, over 300 life-sized fiberglass cows graced Chicago’s sidewalks, plazas, and public parks. When the exhibit ended, the cows were auctioned off and the proceeds were donated to charity. The auction house Sotheby’s estimated that the cows would bring in a few hundred thousand dollars total, but when the auction ended the decorated fiberglass bovines netted roughly three and a half million dollars.  Aside from all the good it did for Chicago, its residents, and charitable organizations, “Cows on Parade” ignited a national public art trend. In the years after the Chicago exhibit, several dozen cities across the country held similar public art exhibits. The nation’s capital hosted “PandaMania,” Anchorage, Alaska organized “Wild Salmon on Parade,” Cincinnati, Ohio arranged “The Big Pig Gig,” and Bloomington, Illinois held “Corn-on-the-Curb.” The public art craze even reached north of the border to Toronto, Ontario. Published in 2007, American Art Parades documents how American cities took inspiration from the Windy City’s “Cows on Parade” and created their own unique public art displays.   To commemorate the successful exhibit and elicit fond memories of it, Hanzig commissioned a sculpture of a life-sized bronze cow and donated it to the City of Chicago. Installed permanently near the entrance to the Chicago Cultural Center in 2001, the bronze cow measures eight feet in length, four and a half feet in height, and weighs about 2,500 pounds. Incised into its eyes are images of the Chicago Water Tower and Pablo Picasso’s untitled Daley Plaza sculpture.  In 2019, to mark the twentieth anniversary of “Cows on Parade,” Hanzig organized “Cows Come Home.” An outdoor public art exhibit held in Chicago’s Jane Byrne Park, it featured about twenty of the original fiberglass cows, including the ones owned by Hanzig and his brother. The exhibit ran throughout the month of July 2019.

Situated near the entrance to the Chicago Cultural Center, this sculpture commemorates “Cows on Parade,” a temporary outdoor public art exhibit held in the Windy City in 1999. It featured over 300 life-sized fiberglass cows that graced the city’s sidewalks, plazas, and public parks. When the exhibit ended, the cows were auctioned off and the proceeds were donated to charity. To celebrate the successful exhibit and elicit fond memories of it, Chicago shoe store owner Peter Hanzig, who came up with the idea for the exhibit, commissioned a sculpture of a life-sized bronze cow and donated it to the City of Chicago. Installed in 2001, the bronze cow measures eight feet in length, four and a half feet in height, and weighs about 2,500 pounds. Incised into its eyes are images of the Chicago Water Tower and Pablo Picasso’s untitled Daley Plaza sculpture. 

Art and History Tour for Chicago's Millennium Park and Grant Park

Replica of Colossal Olmec Head #8

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources