A half-century later, and we still don’t have a clue what Picasso statue is

It’s Oh, So Fitting of Chicago’s character that one of the most prominent landmarks our city has – the statue created by famed artist Pablo Picasso – is something we don’t have a clue what it’s supposed to be.

A daily sight in Daley Plaza

It has been 50 years to the day since the Picasso, as we simply refer to it, since Pablo himself never gave his creation for the city a proper title, was unveiled to the public.

OF COURSE, AS also is so befitting of Chicago’s character, city officials chose to celebrate the half-century mark of the statue last week.

As in the official ceremonies marking 50 years of the statue’s presence in the Daley Plaza were held Aug. 8, rather than on Tuesday.

I’d like to joke that the reason the ceremonies were held a week early was because we wanted to detract from the pair of events that otherwise would have had their anniversaries on Aug. 8.

As in the 29^th anniversary of the Chicago Cubs’ first attempt at playing a night game at Wrigley Field (it was rained out, and the first actual game didn’t occur until the following day), or the 41^st anniversary of the time the Chicago White Sox tried playing an official major league ballgame in shorts.

INSTEAD, WE CHOSE to jump the gun on the Picasso structure, which now is such a part of the city’s composition that we don’t really notice it. We walk through the Daley Plaza in the shadows of the Daley Center courthouse or the County Building/City Hall where the real Richard J. Daley prevailed and we expect to see it.

 

Would something like this really be better?

It’s just there.

Personally, I’m not going to take a crack at guessing at what it was Picasso was trying to portray when he created the statue on commission for the architectural firm that designed the Daley Plaza for Chicago back in the mid-1960s (although I do get a kick out of the White Sox warmup jacket he occasionally was photographed wearing).

Although the artistic experts who say it is a profile of a woman (if viewed from behind at just the right angle) may be on to something. Personally, I think the confused perception it creates amongst so many people may be totally befitting of Chicago.

 

Celebrating the shorts?

A PLACE THAT outsiders may find bewildering, but that we locals accept for all its flaws and complications.

In fact, I wonder if a more conventional attempt at public art would have created something that would be oft-ignored and long-forgotten. Or wind up creating an image that would totally tick off a segment of the city.

Such as the ideas that were tossed about publicly back in 1967 by those who were offended by Picasso’s effort to create an image that would come to personify Chicago. Then-alderman John Hoellen (I knew him later in his professional life as a CTA Board member) was the guy who suggested a statue of Chicago Cubs slugger Ernie Banks.

Which I’m sure would have gone over terribly with the segment of Chicago that has no use for the Cubs, or baseball in general.

Says about Chicago?

ALL I KNOW is that the Picasso (which actor John Belushi’s character made reference to in “The Blues Brothers”) is now a common backdrop – particularly for all the activist-types who choose the Daley Center for their protests against local government.

I suspect Picasso himself would have appreciated that idea, since the artist himself had Communist leanings (but that didn’t stop him from accepting payment from the city for his work).

Besides, perhaps it’s a good thing that Picasso’s work of vague perceptions exists for Chicago.

Picasso used to be part of the holiday festivities when city tree was in Plaza

Otherwise, our city’s most prominent work of public art might very well turn out to be the Bat Column statue by Claes Oldenburg (whom the now-defunct City News Bureau used to like to boast was one of their former reporter-type people) that exists outside of the Social Security Building on Madison Street. Just think of all the confusion that image could cause!

  -30-

Chicago the site of the Trump ‘chicken dance,' and also paid protesters?

I get that President Donald J. Trump is p-o’ed with the thousands of people who decided they had nothing better to do Saturday than participate in rallies to complain that the president is too cowardly to make public his income tax returns.

Even his rant that the “election’s over” is predictable, if not terribly clever or witty.

BUT THERE’S SOMETHING just ever so pathetic about Trump’s insistence that there were “paid” people showing up to create the image of an American populace that doesn’t think highly of our newly-elected (he’s still in his first 100 days of office) president.

I know personally I learned of the rallies being held across the country off a website that encouraged people to go (I didn’t). Those included the Daley Plaza rally that attracted a few thousand individuals in its own right, along with rallies in the outer suburbs of Naperville and Chesterton, Ind., that drew a few hundred.

But there wasn’t anything indicating any form of compensation for anyone who showed up. It might have been more accurate for the Trumpites to argue these people need to “get a life,” (dancing in front of a giant, inflatable chicken erected outside the Trump Tower in Chicago) rather than they’re being bribed.

Particularly since there is evidence that Trump, during his campaign, goosed up the size of his own supportive crowds with some cash payments. Could it be that Trump is like one-time baseball manager Billy Martin, who assumed the whole world was out to get him and concocted strategies based off what he thought everyone else was doing to him?

IF TRUE, IT is sad. It is sorry. It is lame.

It is truly evidence of someone who needs to get a life, particularly since as he himself put it, he “won” the 2016 presidential election, and ought to enjoy the position’s perks – rather than concocting conspiracies against himself.

  -30-

Moving Christmas tree closer to people rather than pols; what about menorah?

In a certain sense, it makes sense for Chicago’s official Christmas holiday tree to move from its current location in the Daley Plaza.

This scene from 2013 won't be returning to Daley Plaza come December. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

That location puts the city’s giant tree within sight of the Daley Center courthouse and the Cook County Building, while being within a quick walk of City Hall and the Thompson Center state government building.

IN SHORT, THE perfect spot for all of the city’s politically-oriented people to have the tree within their sightline, or close by for their thoughts.

Considering that our politicos often think they are the center of the universe (and consider those people with little to no interest in politics or government to be subversives), it is no wonder that the tree has been in the same place for virtually every year since 1966.

The Chicago Tribune reported that there was one holiday season (1982) when the city set up the official tree at State Street and Wacker Drive – although I honestly have no recollection of that moment (even though I was 17 and was very much city-based back then – I left for college in Bloomington, Ill., and Washington, D.C. the following year).

Considering that I was born in ’65 (yes, I turned a half-century old a couple of months ago), it isn’t an exaggeration for me to say that the holiday tree is a life-long tradition for me.

Picasso seems so lonely the rest of year

YOU CHECK OUT the holiday decorations set up on State Street in the department store windows, then venture over to the Daley Plaza to see the tree.

Although in recent years, there has been that German-themed Christmas village set up in the space around the city’s official tree. They even set up the city’s official Hanukkah menorah right by.

It has become a festive city tradition, and one that makes the Picasso statue also located in the Daley Plaza seem so naked the rest of the year with nothing but the pigeons surrounding it.

But that will be no more beginning with this holiday season. For city officials announced this week that when they erect the city’s official tree on Nov. 24, it will be in Millennium Park.

NOT AMONGST THE political people. But at a location where they hope it will attract even more public attention. Technically, it will now have a Michigan Avenue address; rather than a Clark Street one.

Will the city menorah move with the tree?

Although since it will now be near the Maggie Daley Park, one could argue that the city will still use the Daley name as the location for official city holiday celebrations.

There also is the fact that the city has an ice rink nearby, and there will be the vision of people being able to skate and slip on the ice before checking out a giant, 55-foot-tall tree (usually a spruce or a fir).

The kind of Christmas holiday celebration that could wind up appearing on postcards that bear the official symbol of city recognition.

UNLIKE THE PAST celebrations which had an ice rink one block to the east back in the day when Block 37 was vacant and officials set up a temporary ice rink each winter so as to make the downtown location seem just a little less decrepit than it had become.

So what should we think of this shift? It is going to take some getting used to, although I suppose there is a younger generation that will think nothing of this move.

There even is a sense of history returning, as there once was a time when the official holiday tree was set up in Grant Park – dating back to the first city tree in 1913.

But for me, the occasions when I walk through Daley Plaza come December are going to seem a bit strange. The plaza in December without having to work one’s way through a maze caused by the Christmas village AND the holiday tree will seem deserted.

  -30-

Banks finally makes it to Daley Plaza

Somewhere in another realm of existence, John Hoellen is either smiling, or laughing his head off.

Hoellen is an alderman from long ago remembered because he was one of the few people who would publicly say when he believed Mayor Daley (as in the old man Daley, not the son of more recent years) was “full of it” on various issues.

OF COURSE, HOELLEN was often the lone Republican serving in the City Council during his time in public service. So being a malcontent to the majority came naturally.

Why am I bringing up Hoellen now?

It is because he came to my mind when I learned Sunday of the intent by city officials to pay tribute to one-time Chicago Cubs ballplayer and Hall of Famer Ernie Banks by putting his statue in Daley Plaza. Literally, the statue that has been outside of Wrigley Field for the past seven years will be moved this week to outside of the county courthouse that has the famed Picasso statue. Banks died Friday night following a heart attack.

Anybody who knows their local history remembers that many local people initially didn’t like that Picasso statue. It looked freakish. What is it? There are still people who can’t tell you what it is supposed to represent.

HOELLEN WAS THE public official who was so critical of Pablo Picasso’s design that he said city officials should have erected a statue of Ernie Banks instead, if they wanted to capture the true Chicago spirit.

Now I don’t know if I agree with that sentiment. In fact, I remember Hoellen from my reporting days with the now-defunct City News Bureau – at one point, I covered the Chicago Transit Authority and Hoellen was the board member who could always be counted on to complain (often for legitimate reasons) about what the majority of the CTA board wanted to do.

Personally, I think the Picasso statue is so unique and gives our city a distinct monument outside the building where so many lawsuits get resolved – and across the street where our city and Cook County politicos continue to concoct so many deals that aren’t necessarily in the public interest.

But for a four-day period, at least, people will be able to show up to pay their tributes to Ernie Banks. Hoellen’s vision, or lack thereof, gets to come true.

THEY’LL BE ABLE to go on and on about how we should all “play two” today and whine about how it’s a shame that Banks never got a chance to show his stuff in a World Series OR be alive to toss out the ceremonial 'first pitch' at their fantasized Cubs World Series in 2015.

While all those pigeons who converge on Daley Plaza regularly will be able to do their business, so to speak, all over Ernie’s image. It’s too bad they couldn’t aim for the political people located across the street.

  -30-

I wish we could have dug an alligator-filled moat Monday around Daley Plaza

I’m sure in the minds of the conservative ideologues of the world, they took a stab at the political heart of true-blue (as in Election Night map-leaning) Chicago.

Daley Plaza wasn't so cheery Monday



Although to my mindset, what the ideologues (just over 100 of them, who looked so few and lonely in the grand space that is Daley Plaza) managed to do on Monday was turn themselves into a dinky little island – isolated from the masses who have better things to do than spend a lunch hour spewing ever-so-much trash talk.

STANDING IN THE shadow of the Picasso statue with their crudely-made picket signs that allege Barack Obama to be a socialist/communist/whatever phrase was most alliterative with the rest of their insult, it almost seemed like the lady was shuddering in disgust at the sight of so many people in her presence with nothing better to do at mid-day.

Or maybe she was just shuddering from being exposed to the 26-mph winds that gave the Loop a mid-Monday chill?

Either way, it was a pathetic sight to see so many people trying to pretend that it was still 2010 and that their “Tea Party” movement was still relevant (one woman literally crossed the “2010” off her old picket sign and replaced it with “2012” – as though nothing else had changed.

About the only thing that was reassuring about the spectacle is that “real people” of Chicago could be seen walking past the mid-day rally without giving it a second thought.

IT REALLY WAS like there was a separation between the ideologues who are letting their own hang-ups about modern-day life dictate their policies, and those rest of us who live in the real world and have our own problems to deal with.

There just isn’t any time to deal with the kind of nonsense-talk that was spewed on Monday, or that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is likely to spew when he visits Springfield, Ill., on Tuesday.

Not even the “laundry list” of Illinois political officials ranging from Gov. Pat Quinn to Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill, to Mayor Rahm Emanuel whose character was insulted by Danielle Rowe, a failed candidate for an Illinois House seat from the northwest suburbs who is trying to make sure we haven’t forgotten her.

Although I suspect the majority of us never knew her to begin with.

THEN AGAIN, I think people who use the Gadsden flag (a symbol of U.S. independence) to try to give their own ideological leanings some merit are being disrespectful – particularly when they use those flags as shawls to keep themselves warm.

KLEEFISCH: Touring the Midwest for Walker

Personally, I found it amusing to learn that Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch had nothing better to do that she could spare the time to be in Chicago to rant and rage about how unfair it is that anyone would think of having a recall election for her running-mate – Walker himself.

You’d think she’d be in her home state – either tending to her government post or trying to appeal to people who actually care about Wisconsin and are capable of voting there in the upcoming special election (scheduled for June 5).

Then again, she is a lieutenant governor. She probably had nothing better to do with her time than make a visit to Chicago (and St. Louis, too). It is the eternal truth of state politics everywhere that lieutenant governors only need to have a pulse – just in case the inevitable happens.

EITHER THROUGH MORTALITY or impeachment – which we in Illinois learned three years ago is a very real possibility.

So I couldn’t help but be amused when Kleefisch insisted on claiming the whole “recall election” movement in Wisconsin is, “about Big Union power. The Big Union bosses siphon dues from their union members, even the ones who don’t agree with them.”

That’s pretty tough talk. Although it comes across as whining, particularly since the whole reason this partisan fight in Wisconsin started is that Walker was the one who provoked the unions with his attempt to mess with Collective Bargaining rights for Wisconsin workers.

Of course the opposition will fight back. This kind of rhetoric makes Walker seem like the schoolyard bully who thinks he’s entitled to pick on everybody – and who thinks the person who slugs him back and blackens his eye is the bad guy!

PERSONALLY, I THINK Kleefisch does Walker more harm with rhetoric like she spewed in Chicago. Although I also think that we have enough loopy loons for political officials from Illinois.

Do we really need to be importing political trash-talkers from other states to tell us a batch of nonsense?

  -30-

Only a Grinch sees a "war" between Christmas and other holidays

On the surface, it seems like a gesture of respect and equal time -- the giant menorah erected in Daley Plaza just a few dozen feet from the city's official Christmas tree.

For eight days, anyone passing through Chicago's unofficial public square can share in spirit of celebrating the Maccabees, who through a miracle of sorts managed to have their lamps with enough oilk for one night burn brightly for eight days.

IT'S NOT JUST Chicago that gives this conciliatory gesture to Jewish people.

Just this week, officials with the park district in Naperville approved the erection of a giant menorah next to the Santa House that is a local tradition. Park district officials gave in to the menorah even though their attorneys (according to the Daily Herald newspaper of Arlington Heights) were telling them there was some legal grounds for keeping the Santa House grounds Christmas-only.

So it won't just be downtown Chicago wehre people can share in the concept of Hanukkah. Others will be abel to watch in confusion or in anger as the various lights on top of the "candles" light up each night.

I suspect many people will be engaged in the hustle and bustle of the commercial aspects of the holiday season to pay these public menorahs much attention. Except for the few people who will perceive them as a "War on Christmas" because they'd rather everybody be forced to pay exclusive attention to the Christmas holiday.

THEY'RE THE ONES who probably remember fondly the episode of "The Simpsons" where Krusty the Klown's non-denominational winter holiday special told us to have a "Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Crazy Kwanzaa, Solemn and Dignified Ramadan and a Tip-Top Tet."

Yet I can't help but wonder about these giant menorahs and what point they really serve, other than to force certain political people to accept the fact that not everyone in this nation is of a Christian religious denomination.

I still remember a discussion I had a couple of decades ago with a co-worker who was Jewish. She told me she found the whole concept of a giant public menorah to be somewhat gaudy.

After all, the whole point of the menorah and the lighting of the candles on each of the eight days of the holiday (which this year began at sundown Friday and continues through the end of next week) is to create a moment in a Jewish household when everybody engages in the requisite prayers in Hebrew (even though for some Jewish people, those prayers are the only Hebrew they know) and pays a few moments tribute to the thought of the Maccabees of thousands of years ago who struggled to survive under odds that would have wiped out anyone else.

PUTTING UP THE large-scale versions of a menorah does border on crass. It's almost as tacky as some of those Santa Claus holiday displays erected in the name of Christmas -- in mid-October.

Does this mean that the true point of a public menorah is that some Jewish groups are showing us they can celebrate their holiday in as tacky a manner as some Christians do with Christmas?

I'd hate to think that is the case. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.

So as much as I can appreciate the concept of "equal time" and also enjoy the rage that some of these "War on Christmas" types express when they get all worked up over not having their "holiday" reign supreme at this time of year, I'm not sure I see the point.

SO THIS IS what will be going through my mind this weekend, as I'm likely to spend some time with my father and step-mother, who is Jewish. That also means the bulk of my nieces and nephews are being raised Jewish (and are likely to make out this weekend with presents as much as any Christian kid the morning of Dec. 25).

In my own way, I'll even be partaking in Hanukkah (we're gathering Sunday for a holiday party that will include the moment of truth at the menorah). The rest of the week will consist of just a few moments of reflection by my stepmother and whichever of her grandchildren happen to be on hand -- as she tries to pass along the custom to the next generation.

It seems to be to be a more dignified act than anything involving a trip to a public place to look at a giant menorah at the exact moment that another "candle" is lit.

And come Christmas Day, I'm likely to spend a good portion of the day with my mother and other family in holiday celebration.

SO IF FOR me it seems like the whole idea of dueling holidays is just a tad absurd, you'd be correct. There's no reason that there has to be a holiday conflict this time of year. Unless you happen to be the disagreeable type who is looking for a reason to be upset.

In which case, you're just a Grinch.

-30-

EXTRA: To quote The Hawk, “It’s Ovah”

It was a sight to behold – a batch of people in Daley Plaza who want the Olympics to be held in Chicago chanting “We’re number 4” (the city’s International Olympic Committee ballot position), only to learn the results of the first round of votes and realize that Chicago really WAS number 4.

The Second City was the first of the four finalist cities to get knocked out of competition to host the 2016 Summer Olympic games.

THEN, A SILENCE overcame that downtown crowd. I never knew that many Chicagoans gathered together could be that quiet.

Now we can be lumped in with New York, which had its own Olympic dreams taken down four years ago. And now, maybe we can get on with our lives, while some of us will dream about what could have been in Washington Park.

-30-