Saturday, September 08, 2007

Cloud Gate

The crown jewel of Chicago's Millennium Park, Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate".










8 comments:

Mike Ballburn said...

Wasn't there some controversy about being able to photograph this?

Rick Lee said...

I wasn't aware of the controversy, but I looked on Wikipedia and found this:

"The sculpture attracted some controversy in 2005, when a professional photographer was denied access to the piece without a paid permit. The artist holds the copyright for the sculpture: this means that, while the public can freely photograph it, permission of the artist is required for any commercial reproductions. This is the case for all works of art currently protected by United States copyright law, and is not specific to this work. Lack of knowledge of the laws around this issue and lack of clarity about the original denial to photograph the work of art, led towards an Internet protest in which people started uploading their own personal photos of the work of art wherever possible, and most prominently to popular photo-sharing website Flickr."

I've heard about similar kerfuffles over public sculptures. It's true that public sculpture is covered by copyright, so technically you aren't supposed to reproduce the image without attaching the artist's copyright notice and probably the artist has certain rights regarding selling t-shirts and posters, etc. But the reality is that a large piece of public art like this is pretty danged hard to protect in such matters.

Nicole said...

Now that is wild!!! Cool photos!

Rick Lee said...

It's not often that a new piece of public sculpture is actually inspirational and popular! It's really cool from the outside, but walk underneath it and it really takes the breath away.

Jerry Pennington said...

Wow, that's incredibly cool. I like the next to last photo that kinda gives you the perspective of standing back from it.

Scott Mitchell said...

No segway cop photos?

Rick Lee said...

I saw some park employees on Segways... it never occurred to me to take their picture. BTW, After I'd been in Chicago for a while it occurred to me that I hardly ever saw any police except for an occasional cruiser driving by. I like the beat cops in New York City that are around all the time.

Buffy said...

I always feel like I'm on psychotropics when I look at this particular piece of art.