Public Art in Chicago: Schaumburg [Chicago Athenaeum International Sculpture Park]

Fiber Wave - by Makoto Sei Watanabe

The Chicago Athenaeum

The Chicago Athenaeum is an international museum of architecture and design, appropriately based in Chicago. The Museum is dedicated to the Art of Design in all areas of the discipline: architecture, industrial and product design, graphics, landscape architecture, and urban planning. The Museum's mission is the advancement of public education about the value of Good Design - from the "spoon to the city" - and how design can positively impact the human environment.

As an International Museum, The Chicago Athenaeum maintains offices and operations in Chicago, Schaumburg (Illinois), Galena (Illinois) as well as Dublin (Ireland) and Athens (Greece).

The Chicago Athenaeum - International Sculpture Park

Location: 201 Schaumburg Court, Schaumburg, IL: 60193

The International Sculpture Park is located in the Schaumburg Municipal Complex. It is a unique public-private partnership between The Village of Schaumburg and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design.

This garden was planned by the Greek architect and artist, Ioannis Karalias. The diagonal of the main pathway cuts across the gardens where the sculptures are placed within the natural confines of the open native Midwest Prairie. Most of the sculptures were bought and placed in the garden during the late 1990s and reflect the abstract, industrial aesthetic of that time, however there are some works that are more evocative, for example the Vineland sculpture by the Norwegian artist, Jarle Rosseland, is a Stonehenge-like configuration that emulates an ancient Viking Ship that was once used to discover the Americas.

Fiber Wave

by Makoto Sei Watanabe [Tokyo, Japan]

1998

"Fiber Wave", with the Prairie Center of Arts in the background...

Fiber Wave," is comprised of 50 carbon rods, each 4.5 meters high. It represents nature's gentle beauty as it sways in the wind like a field of prairie grass. At the tip of each rod is a computer chip containing a solar battery and diode which emits a blue light. As the rods gently sway in the night breezes, they emulate fireflies, with twinkling lights that also suggest stars in the heavens.

Together

by Jerzy S. Kenar [Chicago, Illinois]

1997 / Cedar

"Together" is the gateway to the International Sculpture Park.

The arch is comprised of two different colors of cedar.

The Diver

by Jerry Pear [Chicago, Illinois]

1989 / aluminum and painted in polychrome.

Gothic

by Klaus Vieregge [Obernkirchern, Germany]

1997 /stone

The sculpture is made from finely chiseled stone quarried from the Obernkirchern region in Schaumburg, Germany, and weighs more than two tons.

Tongues

by Nina Levy [ New York, New York]

1994 /bronze powder, resin

What Now

Egil Bauck Larssen [Trontheim, Norway]

1998 / The 6,000 lbs...

Sculpture rises dynamically in a circle with a cube at the top. It is composed of 400 steel balls - 7balls in a row - with the circle constructed of 150 rows.

Vineland

by Jarle Rosseland [Oslo, Norway]

1999

"Vineland" commemorates the 1,000-year anniversary of the Viking explorer, Leif Eiriksson and his discovery of the Americas in the year 1001 AD. Fifteen giant stones in varying heights, from 6 to 15 feet, are arranged in the outline of a Viking ship with cryptic signs and the position of the stars and planets in the years 1,000,2,000, and 3,000 AD highlighted in gold leaf.

Chairs

by Argyro Konstantinido [Athens, Greece]

The work is constructed of steel with silver and aluminum plaques. The artist demonstrates that ancient civilizations exercise a peculiar attraction to modern humanity.

Athys III

by Charles de Montaig [Laconnex, Switzerland]

1997 /Cedar

Evoking images of a lightning bolt that hit the earth and remained embedded in the ground, the 15-foot high "Athys III" was sculpted from cedar. The sculpture is strongly poetic, geometric, minimal and representative of today's contemporary art in Switzerland.

Skulaskeid

by Pall Gudmundsson [ Iceland]

2000

The eight-ton gigantic 6-foot head resembles an ancient face from Norse mythology. Quarried at the artist's studio at Husafell valley en Western Iceland, the name of the sculpture cones from an old legend of an outlaw, Skuli, who escaped his enemies riding the good horse "Sorli" over the rough trail of Kaldidalur, from Pingvellir to Husafell, where the horse died from exhaustion. The Icelandic poet, Grimur Thomsen (1820-1896) wrote about this epic tale from Viking times.