Monday, March 19, 2007

FINALLY.


I'd been eager to see "Agora," a public-art sculpture that had been installed at Grant Park last autumn. I'd seen photos on the web, read write-ups about this huge installation of nine-foot statues. Predictably, it has been controversial.

For me, it has been maddening because I have on several occasions tried to find this thing, with no luck. Everything I had read talks about its enormous size, its unavoidability, its eye-grabbing originality, the way its very mass takes over the landscape.

And I couldn't find it. Huge bronze figures placed in an open area of grass in the flattest landscape imaginable, and it vanishes, Tardis-like, whenever I've gone in search of it. I've stood at the intersection of the streets by the park, turning and turning, and feeling more like my driver's license should say Twilight Zone, USA.

So today after work, the weather mild, the sun still out after work and nothing demanding my time, I walked over to Michigan Avenue and walked south, my eyes glued to the landscape.

And there it was. Right there. I had been so close to it so many times, but just over a knoll or behind a bend, coming at it from the wrong side. It was lovely, and I wandered among the figures, relishing the feeling of being enveloped by these silent semi-human colossi, feeling unlonely in the loneliness of it.

I took a photo with my cell phone, just in case it's vanished again when I go back.

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