You are all one, living in this strange globule dropped from space. The curious quality of the reflective surface tends to reflect images from somewhere inside the mirrored surface, rather than bounce them off. In a more literal way than Caillebotte’s painting, you enter the Bean - the city enters the bean, the sky enters the bean, and you enter it too. Think of office parks or huge plants out in the middle of nowhere. Although they are perhaps shaped by architecture and weather and geography, and certain types of people flock to certain cities, a city is just a collection of buildings unless there are people who inhabit it. But most importantly, it incorporates the people too - and it’s the people that make a city. It incorporates the huge Midwestern sky and the magnificent Chicago skyline.
It is, to me, one of the most perfect examples of public art in existence. And it doesn’t do that because transformation is a singular experience, and you are never alone with The Bean.Īnd because you are never alone with The Bean, it is firmly rooted on the ground. Meant to celebrate the city and her famous skyline, and elevate the visitor - hence the name CLoud Gate - it has become a major tourist destination and is, in my opinion, one of the most perfect pieces of public art ever created.Īnd anyway, it’s in the shape of a kidney bean, so what do you want, Anish Kapoor? It’s the Bean!Īlthough Kapoor’s vision was to uplift and transform the visitor, The Bean doesn’t do that.
Inspired by liquid mercury, Kapoor’s design is made up of 168 stainless steel, highly reflective plates with no visible seams.
The Bean, as it’s known by everyone who is not Anish Kapoor, is the centerpiece of Chicago’s Millennium Park, officially unveiled in 2006. Things there are… more American-y.Īnd as usual, I made a bee-line for the Bean. It was my first visit back to the States in two years. I just flew in from Chicago, and boy are my arms tired. The author and her dad and tourists, reflected in Cloud Gate 2017 And then that became my favorite thing to see. It used to be that I always made a visit to my favorite painting, but then Chicago got The Bean. I love the painting because you can almost step inside. I told my dad that I love Caillebotte’s painting because you can almost smell it, the smell of spring rain on a city street you can almost hear it, footsteps, quiet conversation, the rattle of carriage wheels. One is a perspective of motion, and the other is a perspective of emotion. There is a point on the horizon that architecture uses as reference, where in classical paintings the reference can be a point on the far horizon, the middle ground, the sky, the foreground… it’s a perspective of emotion, while the other is a perspective of motion. I also love architecture, and Caillebotte - who was trained as an architectural engineer - fills his paintings with straight lines, and the perspective of architecture, which is not the same as the perspective of, say, the Renaissance. Paris Street, Rainy Day magnets at the Art Institute of Chicago
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