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It began as a fluke. In 1967, Milwaukee art student Dean Sharp was in Chicago’s Loop looking for a suitable subject for a class project when he came upon the new, untitled Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza. “I noticed people having the most amazing reactions to it,” Sharp recalls, “so I stopped and took a few photographs and then took a few more…. I ended up spending the rest of the day there, shooting all the film I had.”
The Chicago Cultural Center’s exhibition “Dean Sharp: Photographs of the Chicago Picasso” offers another look at his impromptu photographs, which capture a turning point in the city’s cultural history: its commitment to large-scale, modern public art.
Sharp’s photos include images of the sculpture itself, but they primarily focus on the faces of spectators, creating a catalog of awe, outrage and amusement. “There’s a photograph I call Two Generations,” Sharp says. “It’s an older couple and a young couple. It’s clear the young people…[don’t] quite get it, but they think it’s pretty interesting. The older couple, they don’t get it and they don’t think it’s interesting. It’s so obvious.”
Now that we’re accustomed to large-scale, contemporary public-art projects like the Bean, viewers may find those reactions risible. But some people still look at public art with a pained expression, especially when tax dollars are involved. The Picasso was a gift from the artist and funded by private foundations, but many of the works executed since were commissioned by the Chicago Public Art Program, which stipulates that “1.33 percent of the construction budget for construction or major renovation of a City-owned or City-financed building or structure, or for certain outdoor improvements, is used to acquire and install permanent art” at that site.
Many of the program’s endeavors involve neighborhood fixtures such as libraries, police stations and firehouses, which means local residents have to live with whatever goes up. In the past, a panel comprising two community representatives, various city officials and two art professionals selected art for approval by the Public Art Program. Last year, the program altered its ordinance, eliminating the community panel in favor of a public forum. The program’s director, Elizabeth Kelly, says her office will advertise the forums on its website and in neighborhood newspapers in addition to inviting key stakeholders identified by the local alderman. She hopes this system will yield “many more opinions about art the community would like to see.” The Public Art Program’s curatorial staff will then create a short list of artists and have a second public forum to discuss them. “If necessary, we would have even more community forums. The final decision is rendered here with the program,” Kelly explains.
The first public hearings using the revamped process will be held for projects at the West Englewood branch library and the Howard CTA station later this month. Some critics, such as the Chicago Artists’ Coalition, claim the new setup eliminates the public’s voice in the process, but local artists seem to be the people most angered by the change. (According to Kelly, during her ten years with the Public Art Program, 95 percent of the time the Public Art Committee approved whatever recommendations the community panel made.) And although—back in 1967—Ald. John J. Hoellen begged Chicago to replace the Picasso with a statue of Cubs player Ernie Banks, Kelly says that, since then, there has been no public outcry over the public art Chicago has installed.
“Dean Sharp: Photographs of the Chicago Picasso” is on view through June 29. For more information about the upcoming public-art hearings, visit cityofchicago.org/publicart.
