About Art - Monument To Standing Beast
Standing like an alien beast or indescribable "THING" in the plaza outside the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago, Jean Dubuffet’s "Monument with Standing Beast" roars for attention, and gets it. This striking sculpture, a monument which visitors literally get into, was unveiled November 28, 1984, purchased as a gift to the state by private donors.
It was built in 1984 after a scale model made in 1969, as part of the projects originally proposed to the Chase Manhattan Bank, who finally chose the Group de Quatre Arbes instead. These projects are all made up of many assembled pieces allowing circulation by means of cut-out doors. This sculpture is connected to the Hourloupe cycle, which first appeared in Dubuffet’s art made up of multiple cells where each space takes on life, as part of the theory that there is continuity between objects, places and figures. Spectators are not just in front of the monument, but literally in it, and art becomes an architectural structure to experience. Though it looks like concrete painted white and black like a Keith Haring figure, it’s made of fiberglass and epoxy resins with polyurethane paints and stands 29 feet high and weighs a beastly 10 tons.
It was commissioned by the Illinois Capital Development Board,given by the Leonard J. Horwich Family Foundation in memory of Leonard J.Horwich, with additional funding by the Graham Foundation for AdvancedStudies in the Fine Arts and by an anonymous donor. James R. Thompson Center, 100 West Randolph Street.
It was made by famous French artist Jean Dubuffet, who described this sculpture as a "drawing that extends into space" and hoped it would reach to the men on the streets and is one of only three monumental sculpture commissions he did in America. Monument with Standing Beast is comprised of four elements that suggest a standing animal, a tree, a portal and an architectural form.
Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) created his own Foundation nearly 10 years before his death in order to keep a significant collection of his work together. Today, his earlier models are enlarged as works of art carried out by those who had worked with the artist, under the control of the Dubuffet Foundation who supervises each step from the model’s mold to its final installation. For more information, see the Dubuffet Foundation at http://www.dubuffetfondation.com/
Standing like an alien beast or indescribable "THING" in the plaza outside the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago, Jean Dubuffet’s "Monument with Standing Beast" roars for attention, and gets it. This striking sculpture, a monument which visitors literally get into, was unveiled November 28, 1984, purchased as a gift to the state by private donors.
It was built in 1984 after a scale model made in 1969, as part of the projects originally proposed to the Chase Manhattan Bank, who finally chose the Group de Quatre Arbes instead. These projects are all made up of many assembled pieces allowing circulation by means of cut-out doors. This sculpture is connected to the Hourloupe cycle, which first appeared in Dubuffet’s art made up of multiple cells where each space takes on life, as part of the theory that there is continuity between objects, places and figures. Spectators are not just in front of the monument, but literally in it, and art becomes an architectural structure to experience. Though it looks like concrete painted white and black like a Keith Haring figure, it’s made of fiberglass and epoxy resins with polyurethane paints and stands 29 feet high and weighs a beastly 10 tons.
It was commissioned by the Illinois Capital Development Board,given by the Leonard J. Horwich Family Foundation in memory of Leonard J.Horwich, with additional funding by the Graham Foundation for AdvancedStudies in the Fine Arts and by an anonymous donor. James R. Thompson Center, 100 West Randolph Street.
It was made by famous French artist Jean Dubuffet, who described this sculpture as a "drawing that extends into space" and hoped it would reach to the men on the streets and is one of only three monumental sculpture commissions he did in America. Monument with Standing Beast is comprised of four elements that suggest a standing animal, a tree, a portal and an architectural form.
Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) created his own Foundation nearly 10 years before his death in order to keep a significant collection of his work together. Today, his earlier models are enlarged as works of art carried out by those who had worked with the artist, under the control of the Dubuffet Foundation who supervises each step from the model’s mold to its final installation. For more information, see the Dubuffet Foundation at http://www.dubuffetfondation.com/
your photo is not of "Monument with Standing Beast."
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