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Modern Chicago

Mārtiņš Vanags
13/05/2011 

From a vantage point in the center of Chicago’s Millennium Park, this is the scene that opens up. On one side is the Art Institute of Chicago with its newest addition, designed by Renzo Piano. On the other side is Frank Gehry’s open-air stage in the middle of the park. Nearby, you can also see the concert hall of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In the plaza by the park, two sculptures rise up: Anish Kapoor’s polished metal “bubble” and Jaume Plensa’s video sculpture, which also functions as a fountain. These objects can be viewed against the backdrop of Chicago’s much admired twentieth-century modernist architecture—the city’s skyscrapers.

The reader will notice that the previous paragraph describes cultural objects, mostly new and modern. In this sense, Chicago refutes at least two stereotypes about a cultural city. First, that it must be “European,” and second, that it must be ancient with a centuries-long history. This, of course, doesn’t mean that a cultural city can’t be both European and ancient, like Florence or Edinburgh; yet Chicago proves that this is not mandatory.

The art institutions and objects centered around Millennium Park in Chicago are a tourist destination and a trademark for the city. This has been proven by several studies conducted by the city, whose accuracy can be verified by anyone who visits downtown Chicago. Millennium Park is always filled with people; on warm days it simply overflows with visitors. It is difficult to describe the feeling that overcome you in this place. One possibility would be to say that our experience here is somehow authentic and genuine. Art objects and institutions in Millennium Park engender a “living” impression: they are not chilly and remote but, rather, they invite people to expand their cultural experience and abandon themselves to the enticement of this experience. This is a place that makes you want to return. Millennium Park is valuable not only because it is a recognizable embodiment of the city’s ambitions, but also because it leaves a lasting impression on its visitors.

Anish Kapoor’s polished metal object reflects the landscape of Chicago’s skyscrapers. In this way it concentrates, and allows us to see, the city’s overall visual character in a single sculpture. Looking at this work of art, there is no doubt that it was created precisely for this place and this culture, for this era and these people. I suspect that almost any open-minded person would be capable of perceiving Kapoor’s work even better than, say, the baroque sculptures in some cathedral in old Europe. 

Baroque art definitely surprises an unprepared person with its sublime history, yet I doubt it’s possible to relate baroque artwork to our modern-day experience of life.

The fact that the city of Chicago, and particularly its downtown area, embodies visual culture doesn’t mean, of course, that all the objects there instigate us or even wish to instigate us to a deeper contemplation of art. I’m no expert, but it seems to me that Kapoor is not the greatest contemporary sculptor—Anthony Caro, for example, may be better. But Kapoor seems at least just as valuable as Léger or Miro, whose sculptures are considered modernist classics and can be viewed in the Art Institute of Chicago. Perhaps what’s essential is that looking at Kapoor’s sculpture in a public space encourages us to go visit these art institutions.

The Art Institute of Chicago houses works of art from the Middle Ages to the present day. The collection of impressionist works, the largest outside of France, is particularly renowned. At the world’s large museums, you rarely see a permanent exposition that doesn’t just exhibit “big” names, like Warhol or Van Gogh, but also displays an effort to make the collection conceptually united and to create an experience in art education. In this sense, the Art Institute of Chicago is a wonderful exception, because it truly seems that the curators’ intention in selecting the works of art was to educate the viewer.

I have gotten the impression that downtown Chicago strives to educate its visitors and spur them on to something more. From Millennium Park you will probably head to the Art Institute of Chicago. And from the Art Institute it’s not far to the remarkable concert hall of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The concert hall is just three minutes away from the public library, which paves the shortest way to the city’s excellent universities, including the University of Chicago with its eighty-five (!) Nobel laureates. I, of course, don’t want to assert that a visit to Chicago will bring you closer to a Nobel Prize, but it’s clear that an environment has been created here that stimulates our development and encourages us to educate ourselves.

The contemporary architecture and artwork in downtown Chicago didn’t come about accidentally. Rather, they reflect very determined and purposeful investments. The positive effects I mentioned before may seem doubtful, if you have to convince a skeptic.

For instance, a journalist could ask, “Do the hundreds of millions invested by the city and donors in building Millennium Park and the cultural buildings really pay back?”

Before you read any further, try to guess approximately how many tourists visit Chicago every year.

Right answer: 45 million tourists visit Chicago every year, of which almost 35 million are so-called leisure tourists who simply come to see the city. In comparison, France has 74 million visitors every year, and Italy has 43 million. Studies show that tourists to Chicago spent about 12 billion dollars a year. These astronomical figures, of course, can befuddle even a person whose imagination has been cultivated by the works on display in the Art Institute of Chicago. It’s also important to note that, according to studies, the number one destination for tourists to Chicago is Millennium Park and its nearby institutions.

If there is one thing that the nations of the Baltic Sea region can learn from Chicago, then it will sound rather trivial: You must understand what is the main advantage of your competitiveness. For example, Chicago could have tried to erect copies of baroque palaces, to build “English gardens” with figural sculptures, to conjure up Venice on the shores of Lake Michigan, and in this way to create something similar to a Disneyland of culture. Yet Chicago will never be a city of “Old Europe,” and in the best case scenario it would only be able to create a copy that simulates the authentic object. That’s why Chicagoans decided to act in the opposite way: to form a modern twentieth- and twenty-first-century city whose architecture and cultural institutions embody a widely conceived modernism and pursuits that strive to immortalize the spirit of the age.

It seems that the city’s residents and tourists approve of this decision, because the result has given Chicago a unique advantage. It’s hard to name another city that has envisioned and envisions its development plans in such contemporary visual language. If you wish to see twentieth- and twenty-first-century visual culture in concentrated form, Chicago is an excellent destination.