Not Going Straight: Juan Angel Chavez's Points to Blossom in Pioneer Court

click images for larger view

Much is made in contemporary architecture about liberating itself from the constraints of linear form, but the new sculpture in Pioneer Court by Juan Angel Chavez takes randomness to a new level.

Points to Blossom officially goes on display on Monday and is scheduled to remain, providing its durability remain unchallenged, through November 3rd.  (If Chavez's sculpture is not really improvised, the same can't be said for those paper signs hastily taped on with “CAUTION DO NOT CLIMB” underscored in yellow highlighter.)

Chavez is artist in residence for this year's edition of Chicago Ideas Week, which takes place October 13-19 at various locations.


Chavez is known for constructing his works out of found materials - in this case, recycled plywood, angled, bent and threaded together.  Points to Blossom resembles a ball of rubber bands, if it wasn't really a ball, and if the bands were somehow widely dispersed around a large irregular space.  While a building by Frank Gehry or Zaha Hadid may break the bounds of traditional right-angled design, Chavez's loosely woven structure seems all irregularity, a sequence of components that seems just a moment away from totally unraveling and flying off into space.  Its a structural improv that almost defies you to resolve its many parts into a visually comprehensible whole.

Chavez encourages his audience to interact with his sculptures and, Sunday morning, kids were already bounding past any intellectual questions the work may pose, and simply enjoying the experience of Chavez's loopy construction.

CTA looking for 7 or so good artists: October 10 deadline for proposals for public art in 7 rehabbed CTA Red Line North stations

CTA rehabbed Granville Red Line station (click images for larger view)

 The question period actually closed yesterday, but artists have until 3:30 p.m., October 10th, to submit proposals for artworks to be installed along seven stations on the north branch of the Chicago Transit Authority's Red Line, which are, in sequence, undergoing at $81 million rehab.

Artwork on the CTA includes everything from, at the Brown Line Western stop, a slice of the Berlin wall . . .

To 50 works of arts from 41 artists on the Pink, Red, and Brown lines, including Jo Hormuth's Canopy Lights at Red Line 47th street . . .

. . . Jason Pickleman's MONT/ROSE: Area at Brown Line Montrose, and . . .

. . . Juan Angel Chávez and Corinne Peterson's Hopes and Dreams at Red/Roosevelt.  (The CTA has published a pdf of all the artworks._

The Red Line Granville stop was the first to shut down, this past June 1st, re-opening July 13th.  The century-old station had already had one gut rehab back in 1980, so the latest fix was a matter of repairing and restoring concrete and masonry, cleaning, repainting, and refurbishing the platform.  The end result is a bright open design, although the granite fascia - leftover from 1980? - is an incongruous element that weighs down the lightness.

More recently, the Argyle stop closed down for its facelift on August 24th.  Will the distinctive Chinese color palette survive?

Unlike the Brown Line stations, where the art was co-ordinated with the reconstruction of the stations, the Red Line project is a bit of an applique.  Artists are given a pre-configured tabula rasa to work with.  According to the press release, "Prior public art experience is not a requirement."  There's a $525,000 budget for the art works, paid for by the feds.  The stations are Lawrence, Argyle, Berwyn, Thorndale, Granville, Morse and Jarvis.  (You can find full descriptions and histories for each station on Graham Garfield's indispensable Chicago-L website. )

The budget for individual stations will range from $45,000 to $99.000.  There will be two steps to the judging process, with 25 artists selected as finalists, winners announced next February, and all art to be in place by September, 2013. You can read the CTA press release, with a link to the RFP here.