Splendor in the grass

If possible, visit the Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park at Governors State University on a gray afternoon. If you’re lucky, nobody will be around.Many of the sculptures are huddled around the campus buildings and parking lots, but several are part of a wetland trek that is amazing under the haze of a cloudy day. That’s not to say these large and varied sculptures would shed power and presence in the sunshine, it’s just that quasi-shitty weather keeps a lot of folks at home, and something about seeing the sculptures in the company of a friend or two and nobody else makes for a deeply immersive experience (it also ups the chances of spotting a deer or fox). The sculptures, which lie in and around a lake and pond, are set far apart yet placed strategically so that standing close to one, you can spy only the inkling of another. Furthermore, they are connected by pathways of mowed wild grass that are maintained well enough that traversing them barefoot is an option.

You can see the 50-foot-tall For Lady Day from the side of the lake closest to campus, but coming upon it via the path is an altogether different experience. Looking like an old, inert oil pump, it sits at the end of a strip of the trail that cuts down and across a lush ravine. While clearly it can’t tap the earth for petrol, a cross-section of pipe about ten feet in diameter and closed at one end does collect plenty of rainwater. The pipe is suspended by cables, and standing inside the mouth causes it to tip enough that a river comes gushing out into the grass (another case for bare feet). For Lady Day was the park’s first acquisition, built over the course of two summers in 1968 and 1969 while the artist, Mark di Suvero, lived at the Manilow farm (now the university’s conference center).

What’s most remarkable is how all the sculptures look as if they were born right where they stand. John Henry’s enormous Illinois Landscape No.5 sits at the edge of a parking lot, but the yellow jumble of gigantic steel beams looks like an extension of the hill it sits on because the guiding lines of it match the pitch of the land. The 3.7-acre Field Rotation by Mary Miss looks like a temple set up well before the dinosaurs—and certainly before the street running past it.

Not as grand and mesmerizing as the Manilow park, but still well worth a visit, is the Skokie Northshore Sculpture Park. This collection of more than 70 pieces occupies a two-mile stretch of greenbelt between Dempster Street and Touhy Avenue. East of the greenbelt is plenty of trees and a river. West is McCormick Boulevard. The plague of traffic is a little distracting, but the work is varied and strong enough to beat it into submission after about ten minutes of walking the blacktop path that forks around small hills, reconnecting on the other side. In most areas, there are sculptures on both sides, so a walk from one end to the other and back again bears fresh fruit.

The most recent acquisition is Shadow by Lucy Slivinski. It’s a spherical, man-size nest made of steel and blanketed in yards and yards of different chains. Especially fetching is Charger I and II by Ted Gall: two painted steel horses (one red, one pink) caught midgallop in the grass. Gall has four sculptures here and his piece Groundbreaker predates the park. This abstract gasket sits across McCormick from the former headquarters of Fel-Pro—an automotive parts manufacturer for which Gall served as the sculptor-in-residence for 22 years.

For details, see Galleries, Elsewhere.