Boeing Galleries
Encyclopedia
Past exhibitions
2005The first exhibition in the renamed Galleries was Revealing Chicago: An Aerial Portrait, which was displayed on the Central Chase Promenade
Chase Promenade
Chase Promenade is an open-air, tree-lined pedestrian walkway that opened July 16, 2004. It is part of Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. The Promenade was made possible by a gift from the Bank One Foundation...
and South Boeing Gallery, appeared from June 10–October 10, 2005. The exhibit featured 100 images from Chicago metropolitan area taken on 50 flights that occurred between March 2003 and August 2004 at various seasons of the year. Photographer, Terry Evans, a Chicagoan, says that although 90% of the photographs were taken while in a helicopter
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
, her preferred method of travel hot air balloon
Hot air balloon
The hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology. It is in a class of aircraft known as balloon aircraft. On November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first untethered manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air...
, but Chicago was usually too windy to shoot by balloon. At the time of the installation of the exhibition, the North Boeing Gallery was not complete so the exhibition partially took place on the Central Chase Promenade.
2006
Chicago Botanic Garden
Located at 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, Illinois, USA, the Chicago Botanic Garden is a living plant museum situated on nine islands featuring 24 display gardens and surrounded by four natural habitats: McDonald Woods, Dixon Prairie, Skokie River Corridor, and Lakes and Shores. The Garden is open...
and included 65 photomurals
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
of garden
Garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has...
s from 21 countries including Lurie Garden
Lurie Garden
Lurie Garden is a garden located at the southern end of Millennium Park in the Loop area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Designed by Kathryn Gustafson, Piet Oudolf, and Robert Israel, it opened on July 16, 2004. The garden is a combination of perennials, bulbs, grasses,...
. All of the photographs were less than five years old. The exhibition was curated by Penelope Hobhouse
Penelope Hobhouse
Penelope Hobhouse is a garden writer, designer, lecturer and television presenter.-Background:...
and presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Millennium Park with support from The Boeing Company and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. The photographs were formatted at 4 by. The production schedule for the photomural formatted photography used was longer than expected, which led to the week long delay in opening the exhibition. The exhibition was a thematic reference to the Chicago motto, "Urbs in Horto", which means city in a garden, and was a modern adaptation of a 2003 exhibition at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The exhibit provided viewers with an appreciation for the landscape design, aesthetics and the horticulture of gardens.
2007–2008
The gallery hosted Mark di Suvero
Mark di Suvero
Marco Polo "Mark" di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor born Marco Polo Levi in Shanghai, China in 1933 to Italian expatriates. He immigrated to San Francisco, California in 1942 with his family. From 1953 to 1957, he attended the University of California, Berkeley to study...
, whose large-scale abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
sculptures were on display from April 17, 2007–October 12, 2008. The original duration duration of the exhibition was supposed to only be until April 1, 2008, but the exhibit was extended through the summer and fall of 2008. It is presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Millennium Park, in cooperation with Millennium Park, Inc., and is sponsored by The Boeing Company with support from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.
The exhibit included five pieces in total: two pieces in the North Boeing Gallery and three in the South Boeing Gallery. It was originally scheduled to include only four works. Orion, which was the largest of these, is a bright orange sculpture that measures 53 feet (16.2 m) tall and 12 ST (10.9 t; 10.7 LT). It has been installed on the North Boeing Gallery. The exhibit featured an interactive piece, Shang, which visitors were invited to climb on in the South Gallery. Shang was 25 feet (7.6 m) tall and had a suspended steel beam
Beam (structure)
A beam is a horizontal structural element that is capable of withstanding load primarily by resisting bending. The bending force induced into the material of the beam as a result of the external loads, own weight, span and external reactions to these loads is called a bending moment.- Overview...
that acted as a swing
Swing (seat)
A swing is a hanging seat, usually found at playgrounds for children, a circus for acrobats, or on a porch for relaxing. The seat of a swing may be suspended from chains or ropes. Once a swing is in motion it continues to oscillate like a pendulum until external interference or drag brings it to a...
.
Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
art critic Alan G. Artner felt that the installation was a bit cramped in the Boeing Galleries. He explained that this was why di Suvero was limited to his midsize pieces and felt the Chase Promenade might have served as a better forum and left the artist unfettered to choose from a wider range of pieces. He also wondered why a city that abounds in public sculpture has not ventured to acquire any of his work.
2009–2010
The di Suvero exhibit was removed a the end of October 2008. In March 2009, the park announced its plans to install four large-scale contemporary outdoor works by Chinese sculptors in Boeing Galleries from April 9 – October 2010. The exhibition, entitled "A Conversation With Chicago: Contemporary Sculpture From China", complements the "The Big World: Recent Art From China" exhibition hosted at the Chicago Cultural Center
Chicago Cultural Center
The Chicago Cultural Center, opened in 1897, is a Chicago Landmark building that houses the city's official reception venue where the Mayor of Chicago has welcomed Presidents and royalty, diplomats and community leaders. It is located in the Loop, across Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park...
beginning April 25, 2009 but was conceived independently and is a distinct body of work. Chen Wenling's "Valiant Struggle No. 11," symbolizes Chinese society. The open-work sculpture "Windy City Dinosaur," created by Sui Jianguo
Sui Jianguo
Sui Jianguo , professor and ex-chairman of the Department of Sculpture in Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, is a contemporary Chinese artist....
stamped with the phrase "Made in China" is a critique on the cheap mass-produced goods that are building the Chinese export economy. "Kowtow Pump," is a caricature of the oil rigs by Shen Shaomin
Shen Shaomin
Shen Shaomin is an artist based in Sydney and Beijing.He has exhibited internationally in exhibitions including the 2006 Liverpool Biennial , Mahjong at Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland and Dialogue at East West Gallery in Melbourne.Shen Shaomin's art has the theme of death...
that will have limited Thursday active display times from June 11 through Aug. 27. Zhan Wang
Zhan Wang
Zhan Wang is a noted contemporary Chinese sculptor.Born in 1962 in Beijing, China, Wang entered the Central Academy of the Arts as a sculpture major in 1983....
's "Jia Shan Shi No. 46" is considered the most abstract and depicts the scholar's rock in stainless steel.
Current installation
2011–2012On February 1, 2011, the city announced that the April 6, 2011 – October 2012 Millennium Park Boeing Galleries, Large-Scale Sculptures Exhibition would feature the work of Mexican sculptor Yvonne Domenge
Yvonne Domenge
Yvonne Domenge is a Mexican artist, born in Mexico City in 1946.- Education :She studied plastic arts in Mexico City, in Montreal and in Washington DC as well...
under the exhibition title "Interconnected: The Sculptures of Yvonne Domenge". In addition to several traditional park sponsors, the exhibit is sponsored by the National Council for Culture and Arts, Richard H. Driehaus
Richard Driehaus
Richard H. Driehaus is a fund manager, businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder and chairman of Driehaus Capital Management, based in Chicago, a firm which manages US$10 billion...
Foundation, the National Museum of Mexican Art, and the Consulate General of Mexico. This marks the first installation by a female or Latina artist at the Boeing Galleries. It is regarded as Chicago's last event of the "Mexico 2010" city-wide yearlong 70-event celebration of the bicentennial of Mexico's independence
Mexican War of Independence
The Mexican War of Independence was an armed conflict between the people of Mexico and the Spanish colonial authorities which started on 16 September 1810. The movement, which became known as the Mexican War of Independence, was led by Mexican-born Spaniards, Mestizos and Amerindians who sought...
and the centennial of its Revolution
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
. These are the first sculptures by a latina artist displayed anywhere in Millennium Park. The exhibition was three years in the making and preliminary sketches were on diplay at the Chicago Cultural Center
Chicago Cultural Center
The Chicago Cultural Center, opened in 1897, is a Chicago Landmark building that houses the city's official reception venue where the Mayor of Chicago has welcomed Presidents and royalty, diplomats and community leaders. It is located in the Loop, across Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park...
in the fall of 2010. Also, prior to installation the sculptures' maquette
Maquette
A maquette is a small scale model or rough draft of an unfinished architectural work or a sculpture...
s were displayed at the Chicago Cultural Center as a preview of the exhibit.
The city describes Domenge's sculptures as unifying perceived opposites and harmonizing apparent dissonances by geometrically referencing the natural world. The four piece installation includes a 16 feet (4.9 m) tall red-painted bronze sculpture, Tree of Life on the North Boeing Gallery, which stands as the tallest of work in the exhibit with its 4 feet (1.2 m) wide and 9 feet (2.7 m) tall pair of companion seeds. The tree and seed's represent life in it full form and its new emergence. They are said to represent the "Circle of life". The South Boeing Gallery hosts three steel spheres: Tabachin Ribbon, a 13 feet (4 m) tall yellow sculpture; Wind Waves, a white sculpture measuring approximately 16 feet (4.9 m) high and Coral, in blue, approximately 10 feet (3 m) high. Domenge’s spheres defy gravity and space, conveying a rhythmic beauty and a sense of a larger universal order. The Boeing installation's spheres are said to express a type of beauty that pays respect to a larger universal order with reference to biological examples. The installation on the Boeing Galleries places the works above and to the east of Wrigley Square
Wrigley Square
Wrigley Square is a public square located in the northwest section of Millennium Park in the Historic Michigan Boulevard District of the Loop area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. The square is located at the southeast corner of the intersection of East Randolph Street and North Michigan...
(North Gallery) and Crown Fountain
Crown Fountain
Crown Fountain is an interactive work of public art and video sculpture featured in Chicago's Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area. Designed by Catalan artist Jaume Plensa and executed by Krueck and Sexton Architects, it opened in July 2004. The fountain is composed of a...
(South Gallery). Domenge stated that she attempts to express the beauty of natures geometric order that it expresses in the molecular structures of flowers and plants. She feels that the spheres on exhibit in the South gallery depict the geometric perfection of the cosmos and that the celebrate this in a "festival of color and form". In keeping with her belief in the harmony of nature and out of respect for the park, she presented an installation that required no welding or screws.