From the Wikipedia article on "Cloud Gate" (the official name of the sculpture also known as "The Bean"):
The sculpture has been used as a backdrop in commercial films, notably in the 2006 Hollywood film The Break-Up.... It is also prominently featured in the ending scene of Source Code. Director Duncan Jones felt the structure was a metaphor for the movie's subject matter and aimed for it to be shown at the beginning and end of the movie. The sculpture served as an aesthetic and symbolic setting for the 2012 film The Vow when the lead characters share a kiss under it. It also appears in the video to "Homecoming", a song by Chicago native Kanye West, featuring Chris Martin of the band Coldplay. The sculpture is also featured in the 2008 mumblecore film Nights and Weekends. It was also featured in the Bollywood film Dhoom 3 and the 2014 movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction, the fourth installment in the Transformers series. A modified reproduction of Cloud Gate is also included in Watch Dogs, a video game released in 2014 that takes place in Chicago. Unlike the real sculpture, the in-game replica is a curved, white torus. A movement to Windex the Bean was started in 2017, gaining the attention of over thirty thousand people on Facebook. The event took place on November 15th, 2017, because of a consensus that the Bean is dirty and needs to be cleaned.By the way, that's the Trump International Hotel & Tower in the center of the 4th photograph.
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Art that's all about you. Appreciated almost entirely as an opportunity to take selfies and family snaps -- look, I was here!
Like Jeff Koons balloon dogs, but smaller.
@Crazy Jane But what's also weird is that when you stand right in front of it and aim the camera forward, you diminish into near nothingness. I don't think it's at all easy to see me in my photographs. So the reflective capacity attracts and then tricks.
People were posing IN FRONT of it, but that is done with all sorts of monuments and doesn't depend of the reflectivity of the object.
"A movement to Windex the Bean was started in 2017, gaining the attention of over thirty thousand people on Facebook. The event took place on November 15th, 2017, because of a consensus that the Bean is dirty and needs to be cleaned..."
Perhaps they wanted to remove the brown spot.
-LWL
Much like the "Brave Girl" sculpture episode in NYC, someone should install this next to the bean.
Funny, it doesn't look black to me.
These are neat pictures
The first picture was completely amazing.
I had just read about the I Iranian general accusing da Jews of stealing clouds when I came here to see "Cloud Gate".
https://metro.co.uk/2018/07/03/iran-thinks-israel-stealing-clouds-cause-drought-7679005/
The Bean looks like a big drop of solder.
Wonder how often they have to clean the pigeon droppings off.
Great amusement park feature.
...that's the Trump International Hotel & Tower in the center of the 4th photograph
Both by Wham-O™!
I thought it was hokey, but the tourists love it.
Why are there so many people in the photographs. Wouldn't be better to just stay home and find a nice professional photograph of the sculpture.
The 'Bean' does not make me feel uncomfortable.
Thus, it fails as Real Art.
Another way that you can tell that it is not Real Art?
Real people actually enjoy it.
--LWL
I second PB. When it first debuted we were pretty unimpressed. But the bean does grow on you and is certainly now an odd icon of the city.
Funny side note: we were back in Chicago a few months ago and saw ads for a new architecture program. The ad was a cartoon depiction of the downtown skyline. Strangely enough, the artist seemed to have overlooked the tower in the middle that bears the name of our current president. Simply overlooked, I'm sure.
One Prudential Plaza brings back a memory of a summer trip to Chicago and seeing its “ Tallest Skyscraper.”
An idea:
To make 'The Bean' uncomfortable (and thus Art) Koon's could've named it "Kidney Stone".
--LWL
It's cheerful, whimsical, and upbeat. It needs some graffiti to give it grit and drama......I've often thought that Doris Day would have had more presence if she had had little teardrops, one for each husband and manager who bankrupted her, tattooed on her face. In like way, this bit of whimsy would have more reality if gang members were invited to post Sharpie memoriams to their fallen on its surface.
The human bean
Bean around the world and i i i, can't find my baby.
My wife was going to be in Chicago for work meetings over our 30th anniversary, so I decided to tag along so we could celebrate it there. While she was at work, I wandered the city for three days and took about 1,200 photos. Here are some of them:
Chicago Pix
Lots of down skirting going on.
For public art, it's better than most.
Dickin'Bimbos@Home: The human bean
Ecce homo qui est faba.
etbass said...
Wonder how often they have to clean the pigeon droppings off.
https://vimeo.com/52020416
By Althouse’s definition, that Picasso in Chicago isn’t art.
I love this though:
"Your rage is fear. Our rage is love.” - Joss Whedon, Marvel Comics movie director
My question to him is “How do you know?” Maybe you are the one who is terrified of millions and millions of Americans who mean nobody any harm and just want to get on with their lives.
The wikipedia article mentions that it was supposed to resemble liquid mercury, which was my first guess. How did Chicagoans come to call it The Bean? Similar to saying Da Bears?
"Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands off beans." - Empedocles
beans were slang for testicles.
The thing may actually represent a testicle.
It's a representation of a fart-bubble in a bathtub.
One of the great effects is how the bean transforms the rectilinear grid of concrete joints into a new non orthogonal surface on the bean. This allows you to scale the reflections of other objects.
If you want to know why it was called The Bean, click Althouse's Cloud Gate Wiki link.
I recall Althouse burbling on about frank Lloyd Wright. Well most of his buildings are unlivable: poor air circulation, leaks, excessive heat. They make one uncomfortable, so maybe they are real art. Whoever designed Cabrini Green and downtown Bucharest leave Michelangelo in the dust.
Next, Joy as Discomfort. This seems like No True Scotsman. Point LWL.
Escher can fascinate. So I guess fascination is discomfort too. Can’t be fascinated forever but discomfort need never end — just bight tight shoes! Point LWL, but it's really the same point repeated for the joy of discomforting mockery.
Where is the discomfort in Bach's Little Fugue? I grant you lots of musical works do discomfort — Die Winterreise for example — but I don’t see that they to. Teddy Bears' Picnic is not known for provoking angst, ennui, or weldschmertz. Points, lotsa points, LWL.
Incidentally, many here find LWL disconcerting herself. Laslo's art in action?
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