Monday, August 6, 2007

Hyde Park Anti-Progress


What is this, and when will it go away?

(location: 55th Street and Harper Ave.)


We all clean our closets once a year -- maybe once every couple of years. Aw, heck, I'm even OK with every three or four years; we lead busy lives after all. So, here's the dilemma when the clutter is "public art": who decides when it has served its useful life?

This wasn't a successful sculpture when it went up. It's disgraceful, now that it has crumbled to bits and is growing tree-sized weeds. Even the steel posts that were installed to protect it are rusting.

If Hyde Park had a metaphorical "husband" somewhere, we'd tell him to drag it out to the alley for garbage pickup.

7 comments:

Kate Hannigan said...

Great to see I'm not the only one driven crazy by this eyesore! I messaged Hairston's office about it just days ago and was told:
1) It's about 20 years old
2) Don't know who the artist was; they're asking a previous alderman
3) They've alerted the Dept of Transportation about the weeds and will get back to me about it
What are the chances of getting rid of this "art"?

promoteyourblogforfree said...

nice blog

chicago pop said...

The Hyde Park Art Center was asking passers by the following question: Do you think are should be public? I had this sculpture in mind when I answered: good art should be made public. Bad art should be kept private.

Elizabeth Fama said...

Tonks, my dear friend: oh, it would be so great to get rid of it. I remember that not long after it went up it started to chip and fade. As I recall, everyone involved realized that it was made of material that's not weather-resistant. So it has been a hopeless installation from the beginning. It doesn't need weeding, it needs removal. Start a petition for Leslie H., and I'll sign it! A list of a few dozen signatures might be enough, who knows?

chicago pop said...

I like the new labels for this one. So now it's a challenge to find more to file under "eyesore". This one looks like a car wreck that was petrified in the median.

Famac said...

The artist is Leonard Nimoy.

Peter Rossi said...

You are so right. What a horrible mess. As the saying goes, buildings, prostitutes and "art" become respectable with age.

The defenders of the status quo will love "preserving" this.

The city want to "pave" over this priceless art with a nice neat cement median strip. Let's fight the city plan. It must be a conspiracy of the cement industry to pave over all of the streets of Hyde Park.