One day in the not too distant past, I was slogging through my evening commute on the bus, when a very large object outside the window caught my attention. As we rumbled past, I caught a glimpse of a crew of artisans painting what appeared to be an enormous eyeball at the corner of State and Van Buren. I almost thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, so I whipped out my iPhone and some quick Googling gave me an explanation: the 30 foot tall eye was a temporary art installation by local artist Tony Tassert, fittingly entitled, "Eye."
So today, with no after work plans and decent weather (oppressively hot and humid, but at least not actively raining), I decided to step off the bus for a moment to capture "Eye" on film. Not surprisingly, the park was swarming with tickled tourists in search of their own photo opportunities, along with a few locals taking refuge from the sun in the shadow of the gargantuan optic organ.
I was trying to get a picture of my eye looking at the giant eye, but this was the best I could do.
Contemporary art has never really been my cup of tea, and the towering eyeball was no exception. I just couldn't get over the fact that it wasn't painted very realistically. I think if you're going to erect a giant eye in the middle of downtown, you ought to at least apply some Chuck Close-like standards of photo-realism. Mostly, the thing that bothered me was the border of the pupil. Pupils have crisp edges; they don't blend into the surrounding iris. If you're going to portray organs on such a monumental scale, I think you should stick to proper anatomy and limit the artistic liberties. Perhaps I'm just thinking too hard. It is a fun, quirky addition to the cityscape, even if it's just here until the end of October. And it certainly brings new meaning to the term "Op Art..."
WOAH!
ReplyDelete