The black and white Jean Dubuffet sculpture outside the James R. Thompson Center never excited Chicago as did the Daley Center Picasso, nor did it ever garner the mass appeal of Millennium Park’s Cloud Gate.
But the 29-foot tall fiberglass structure always deserved better than it got, as it was too often tagged by graffiti — or serving as a makeshift outdoor urinal — since its 1984 debut outside 100 W. Randolph St.
Perhaps now its time has come. The 10-ton work, officially titled Monument with Standing Beast — Chicagoans nicknamed it “Snoopy in a Blender” — will find a new home on the grounds of the Art Institute of Chicago, according to the museum.
The piece will be sent to art experts for conservation. After that, the museum said, “we are thrilled for the monument to be on view outside the museum and for it to remain easily accessible to all Chicagoans.”
This is good news, and a chance to see the sculpture in a new light.
Part of the city’s public art tradition
The clustered, almost skyscraper-like sculpture represents a “drawing which extends … into space,” according to the French-born Dubuffet.
The work accompanied the futuristic and polychromic Thompson Center, just as the untitled Picasso was paired with the Daley Center in 1968 and Alexander Calder’s Flamingo at Federal Plaza since 1973.
The $1 million sculpture was among Dubuffet’s final works. The artist died in 1985 at age 83, a year after the unveiling.
When plans were announced last year that the Thompson Center would become the new home of tech-giant Google, the sculpture was set to be relocated outside the state’s new offices at the former BMO Harris Bank building at 115 S. LaSalle St.
“The Dubuffet deserves better than standing in the shade,” art historian and School of the Art Institute of Chicago professor Rolf Achilles told the Sun-Times then. “It won’t have the impact it has now. In other words, Dubuffet is going to be in exile.”
The sculpture will be in good company on the Art Institute campus, a far better location than Monroe and LaSalle streets. The museum has a collection of Dubuffet’s works, including Standing Beast’s near-twin The Forest from 1969 and 1968’s Le Cosmorama III.
In addition to the Dubuffet, the Thompson Center was outfitted with an enviable art collection, including a sculpture by Richard Hunt in the building’s soaring atrium. The state is working to find a new home for those works as well.
Since the Picasso’s unveiling, Chicago has been a national leader in the creation of outdoor public art. It’s great to see the city and state now saving these important works as well.
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