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ThreeMinuteModernist-TheBean

SUMMARY KEYWORDS work, jeff koons, anish kapoor, various backgrounds, magnificent, stunning, piece, chicago skyline, war memorial, frank gehry, magnificently, aforementioned, millennium park, issue, multifocal, morphed, balloon, skyline, amphitheatre, funhouse mirror SPEAKERS Christopher Garcia Christopher Garcia  My recent trip to Chicago I had one must-see, and that was Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate, better known as 'The Bean.' And it's a stunning work, it really is, as much as Anish Kapoor is the most troubling artist working today. He's kinda like Jeff Koons was in 1989. He put out a piece that is just magnificent. It's a piece that speaks of its time and its place, and the viewer. Because this is what is so amazing. When you look at this work, in particular, its position in Millennium Park, you can walk all the way around it, you're reflected in it. At the same time, you're morphed like a multifocal funhouse mirror, and you can walk under it and look up and this beautiful sort of divot, which gives this very different form of distortion to everything you see, it's magnificently beautiful. It is a stunning work. Of course, it was over budget and delayed, but let's not go there. One of the things that makes it so impressive is the ability to take a picture of it. With the various backgrounds. Taken from one angle, you see much of the Chicago skyline from another you catch the Frank Gehry-designed amphitheatre from another you get skyline and I believe it's a war memorial of some sort. Another way and its trees. But what will be in all of those photos is the photographer, you will always see yourself in the work. This is far from the first work that managed that. Jeff Koons, the aforementioned, f course with his balloon dogs, for example, but as a piece of public art, it does magnificent things to draw you in, as well as encapsulate you within this work. It's a masterpiece. It's a masterpiece of public art, and I'm so glad I got to see it in person. Finally,

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