Museum of Modern Ice

[jtb1951]

Once again "The City That Works" has managed to snare a wonderful exhibit. During the month of February, the "Museum of Modern Ice", an ice art exhibit conceived and developed by the ice artist Gordon Halloran, is being displayed in the Plaza at Millennium Park in downtown Chicago, situated nearby the sculpture Cloud Gate (locally known as "the Bean") by the sculptor Anish Kapoor. The ice art is meant to be a living work of art, subject to the vagaries of the winter weather, changing day by day as a consequence. In some of the following photos you will see the artist's assistants scraping off some of the accumulated recent snow so the colors aren't totally hidden. In a few of the photos you will see reflections of the ice art and surroundings in the surface of the Bean. I will post as many of my photos as I can and I hope you all enjoy them!

John.

[jtb1951]

Here are some more photos, continuing around to the back side of the exhibit, which is in the shade.

[jtb1951]

And some more shots.

[jtb1951]

And the final photos for today. Hopefully I will be able to see the exhibit again later this month and see how it has evolved.

John.

[2bnallegory]

Thanks for posting photos. We do need something to make all the cold weather a blessing, so why not make art of it. I did like seeing the big shiny bean.

[tangential1]

Wow, John, those photos are awesome! I especially like the orange and red parts of the sculpture, I think. It looks like something very warm melting the rest of the sculpture away. Very cool:)

And that bean is huge!!! It looks like a spaceship:)

[kriddle]

Like something out of "Flight of the Navigator"...or a red blood cell. Do they have to polish it occasionally? Or does it age gracefully? It would be cool if the ice sculpture turned from green and blue to orange and red as it melted as a kind of encouragement that warmer weather is on its way. Nah, too corny.

[jtb1951]

The scraping that they were doing on Saturday was just to take off the layers of remaining snow from last week's storms. Otherwise it is just open to the elements, and the paint will run and mix if there is any melting. It is meant to be a changing artwork, at the mercy of the weather. We will see what happens; it's only up for the month of February.

John.

[Kiyomi]

That is really intersting! I have never heard of anything like that. It's amazing what people come up with.