Tony Tasset brings public art to Chicago Loop

Tony Tasset created two of my favorite pieces of public art. His Snow Sculpture for Chicago—a flawless replica of a pile of dirty snow embedded with bits of trash—sits year-round in the window of the Goldblatt's Building at 1613 West Chicago Avenue. Paul, his colossal sculpture of an old, weary Paul Bunyan, is one of the best pieces at Governors State University's phenomenal Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park.

This summer, the Chicago artist debuts two offbeat commissions in the Loop, courtesy of the Chicago Loop Alliance (CLA). At a CLA press conference on Thursday 18, Tasset announced that he plans to install banners on State Street bearing images of a cardinal (the Illinois state bird) in flight. Seen in succession, the 144 banners will form an animation, akin to a flipbook, extending from Congress Parkway to Wacker Drive.

Tasset will also place a 30-foot-high sculpture of an eyeball in Pritzker Park (344 South State Street). In 2007, he contributed a smaller but similar piece, Eye, to Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis. Explaining how his Loop projects fit together, the artist says, "I like that the eye is human, the city is culture and the bird is nature." He expects the artworks to be unveiled July 4th weekend and remain on view for at least three months.