Art sights in Chicago
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Pilsen Murals
Murals are a traditional Mexican art form, and they’re splashed all over Pilsen’s buildings. If you arrive by train, your first sighting will be at the Pink Line 18th St station. With the help of his students, local art teacher Francisco Mendoza riotously colored the walls with religious and cultural imagery. The exterior wall of the Cooper Dual Language Academy is the canvas for a 1990s tile mosaic that shows a diverse range of Mexican images, from a portrait of farm-worker advocate Dolores Huerta to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Each summer, art students add more panels. A mural of parishioners eating corn while Jesus looks on graces St Pius Church.
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Cooper Dual Language Academy
Murals are a traditional Mexican art form, and they’re splashed all over Pilsen’s buildings. Check out the exterior wall of the Cooper Dual Language Academy, the canvas for a 1990s tile mosaic that shows a diverse range of Mexican images, from a portrait of farmworker advocate Dolores Huerta to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Each summer, art students add more panels. Local artist Jose Guerrero leads the highly recommended Pilsen Mural Tours where you can learn more about the neighborhood’s images.
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B
Chicago Cultural Center
Heaps of freebies fill the block-long Cultural Center. In addition to housing one of the city’s two visitors centers – with free maps, concierge advice and Chicago Greeter tours – the building hosts free jazz, blues, classical and world music lunchtime concerts, as well as ongoing art exhibitions. In summer, free foreign films show in the 2nd-floor Claudia Cassidy Theater. Check the daily schedule posted at the entrances (at both Randolph and Washington Sts) to see what’s going on each day.
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C
Batcolumn
Artist Claes Oldenburg – known for his gigantic shuttlecocks in Kansas City and oversized cherry spoon in Minneapolis – delivered this simple, controversial sculpture to Chicago in 1977. The artist mused that the 96ft bat ‘seemed to connect earth and sky the way a tornado does.’ Hmm… See it for yourself in front of the Harold Washington Social Security Center.
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D
Monument with Standing Beast
French sculptor Jean Dubuffet created Monument with Standing Beast, which everyone just calls ‘Snoopy in a Blender.’ The white fiberglass work looks a little like inflated puzzle pieces and has a definite Keith Haring feel to it. As you can see by the large number of kids crawling around inside, it’s definitely a hands-on piece of art.
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E
Miró’s Chicago
Joan Miró’s work The Sun, the Moon and One Star, known now as Miró’s Chicago, is across the street from ’the Picasso.’ Miró hoped to evoke the ‘mystical force of a great earth mother’ with this 40ft sculpture, made of various metals, cement and tile in 1981.
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