Fans and prospective visitors of Anish Kapoor‘s massive Cloud Gate sculpture won’t be able to see the public artwork until next year due to construction at Millennium Park.
The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events posted an alert on its website about construction on Grainger Plaza that started this week, limiting public access and views of Cloud Gate, more often known as the Bean, until spring 2024.
“This necessary maintenance by the City of Chicago will replace pavers and make other repairs and accessibility upgrades to the Plaza—to enhance the nearly 20-year-old Park’s appearance, visitor experience, and position as the #1 attraction in the Midwest,” the department wrote.
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Cloud Gate (2006) is 33 feet high, 42 feet wide, and 66 feet long, making it one of world’s largest public art installations. The $23 million sculpture is comprised of 168 stainless steel plates welded together and then polished to a mirror finish, making it extremely popular for selfies and other photographs.
In 2017, the British-Indian artist told ARTnews about his complicated feelings about the sculpture’s popularity and its ability to incite strong opinions.
“When I first did Cloud Gate in Chicago, I saw those pictures of hundreds of people around the piece and I thought, ‘Oh God, what have I done? Is this Disneyland?'” he said. “So I decided to go to Chicago to try to understand what’s really going on there. It didn’t take me long to understand that actually there is something mysterious about that object, and its mystery is to do with its scale. And that comes down to just one simple fact: it has no joints.”
Cloud Gate has also been a featured location for several television shows and movies, including Chicago Med, The Break-Up, Source Code, The Vow, The Beast, and the fourth installment of the film franchise “Transformers.”
The popularity of Cloud Gate has led Kapoor to accuse the Chinese city of Karamay of plagiarism in 2015 and to sue the National Rifle Association of America for copyright infringement after the group included an image of the sculpture in two videos. There is now a smaller version by the artist that finally opened earlier this year at the base of a luxury residential tower in Manhattan after years of delays.