Photo by Kevin Shelton / Chicago Loop Alliance

The Chicago Loop Alliance (CLA) is at it again.  The organization behind Tony Tasset’s memorable EYE and CARDINAL (2010) and Kay Rosen’s interactive GO DO GOOD (2011) is bringing a whole lot of color to Chicago this summer.  Chicagoans have been watching the initial phases of Jessica Stockholder’s Color Jam installation slowly start to transform the loop during the install process for the past few weeks, and tomorrow, June 5 is the official opening date for the third installment in the CLA’s award-winning Art Loop series.

Visitors will be immersed in the bright, new installation at State and Adams as they walk on, in, and through the canvas of renowned multi-media artist Jessica Stockholder.  Commissioned by CLA, Color Jam saturates building façades, sidewalks, and crosswalks in bold colors in Chicago’s largest art installation.  Color Jam is also the largest contiguous vinyl project in the U.S., composed of over 76,000 square feet of colored vinyl – think the equivalent of 50,000 vinyl records, or enough material to wrap 130+ city buses or cover 1.5 football fields!

Photo by Kevin Shelton / Chicago Loop Alliance

In creating Color Jam, Stockholder envisioned a “three-dimensional painting”, spilling out of windows, through doors, and into the surrounding landscape.

“The fictive potential of surface, so thoroughly cultivated through the history of painting, is always ready to burst, spilling forth imagined richness, full of emotional, subjective resonance, and wandering focus is here woven together with the more mundane everyday surface of the street corner. [“Color Jam”] celebrates and demands that the evocative surface of this Chicago street corner be expanded. The corner is canvas, stage, pedestal, and frame against which the public can view a parade of shifting color relationships.”

Photo by Kevin Shelton / Chicago Loop Alliance

On display through September 30, Color Jam invites the public to participate in a series of programs - or “jams” - taking the form of concerts, talks, and happenings throughout the Loop.  In addition, several Loop businesses are offering Color Jam-themed specials, ranging from color-tinis to hotel discounts.  For more information about the artwork, public programs, and special offers from Loop restaurants, retailers, and cultural institutions, visit www.ColorJamChicago.com.

____________________________________________________

The CLA also coordinates monthly First Thursdays Gallery Walks.  For the third summer, Pop-Up Art Loop galleries stay open late and invite the public to their spaces for open houses and receptions on the first Thursday of each month.  Walks are free and open to the public, running from 5-8pm.  Mark your calendar for upcoming walks this summer on June 7, July 12, August 2, September 6 + October 4.  For more details and a list of participating spaces, visit popupartloop.com.

Photo by Kevin Shelton / Chicago Loop Alliance

Artist Kay Rosen’s message to Chicago..?  GO DO GOOD.  Rosen was in the city this morning along with the Chicago Loop Alliance (CLA) crew to unveil and announce Chicago’s newest summer-long public art installation.

State Street light posts are donned with bright yellow banners displaying vertical text with Rosen’s slogan.  A huge painted mural of the text appears on the side of a building at State and Washington (above Old Navy).  The message also appears on select CTA stops, on mounted information boards, and is stretched horizontally above the width of State Street on the train platform at State / Lake.  Passersby are surrounded by the mantra of doing good deeds – like a direct marketing scheme, minus the subtext of buying.

A follow up to last year’s Tony Tasset Eye & Cardinal display, the CLA describes this second annual installation and the process of interpreting it in three stages – seeing, reading, and performance.  At first glance, the broken up characters (G, D, O) look very similar and sometimes are not immediately readable.  Once the viewer recognizes and reads the full phrase, “Go Do Good”, the final phase of the experience can happen when the viewer takes that message with them and acts upon it.  Rosen hopes “the message will encourage good deeds and gestures, large and small, public and private, and that viewers will act out these words on a daily basis.”

The Go Do Good movement aims to connect art to action and will focus on three areas of quality education over the summer including reading, health, and school preparation.  An initiative of the CLA and in association with United Way of Metro Chicago, this project was created to prepare Chicago’s kids to succeed in school and encourage youth to contribute to their communities and workforce, and to foster support and outreach.  Visit GoDoGoodChicago.com for donation information, sponsor partnerships and a tally of good deeds.  (Also check out the city’s progress at the good deeds barometer between Madison & Washington on State Street!)

A midwest-based artist from Texas, Kay Rosen has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is known for her text-heavy paintings, drawings, collages and installations that play on the connection between language and imagery.  

Left: Ty Tabing, Executive Director, Chicago Loop Alliance.  Right: Kay Rosen

Last week, the Chicago Loop Alliance (CLA) announced plans for this summer’s follow up to the unforgettable, gigantic Eye, by Tony Tasset, that stood in Chicago’s Pritzker Park at State/Van Buren last year.  Tasset’s Eye was installed in July of 2010, and was on view to passersby through October. 

This summer, Chicagoans and visitors to the city will see work by Midwest-based, Kay Rosen, the artist that the CLA has commissioned to create this year’s Art Loop 2011 installment.  Rosen’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and she is known for her text-heavy paintings, drawings, collages and installations, playing on the connection between language and imagery.   

No specific dates have been released for this installment; see www.chicagoloopalliance.com for more information.

Art Loop Open was another product of the CLA (in collaboration with Chicago Artists’ Coalition) that took place last October.  The inaugural juried art showcase / competition paired artists with ten venues throughout the loop, and depended on public votes to determine the top pieces from over 200 artists, for a variety of prizes. 

To increase awareness and to further engage the art community, the CLA announced they will partner once again with the Chicago Artists’ Coalition, but will expand their partnership to include MMPI’s Art Chicago and NEXT; Art Loop Open will next be held in 2012. 

Tony Tasset, Eye, Chicago Installation, July-October 2010

Yours/Ours, 2010, Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Photography © Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Photographer: Nathan Keay; http://www.kayrosen.com/work.html

Hi, Highway billboard, Pennsylvania; http://www.kayrosen.com/work.html

Blurred, wall painting, MCA Chicago, 2004/Second Street Gallery, Charottesville, Virginia; http://www.kayrosen.com/work.html

S words, 1994, 13" x 19"; Oil Shtick, 2002, oil stick on paper, 8" x 10"; http://www.kayrosen.com/work.html