This past summer, while the cows' progeny--pigs in Cincinnati, horses in Lexington, buffalo in Buffalo and the list goes on--adorned their host cities, Chicago had moved on to a different, but no less unusual, approach to street displays: It set up Ping-Pong tables throughout the city and invited people to play. In 2001, the city plans something of a return to the original concept with "Suite Home Chicago": painted sofas, television consoles and chairs with ottomans will bring the American living room to the city's sidewalks.
When it comes to whimsical forms of street art, the Second City is undeniably first. The impetus for these spectacles comes from Chicago's innovative Cultural Affairs Department. In 1998, when Chicago businessman Peter Hanig talked up a cow display he'd seen in Zurich and said Chicago should try it, some people looked at him as though he himself should be rounded up. But the department's art officials took a gamble and it paid off handsomely. Tourism and spending boomed, and an auction of the cows raised $3.5 million, many times more than anyone had expected.
What hidden recesses of popular taste has the Windy City tapped into? University of Chicago art history professor Tom Mitchell argues that humans have always favored animals as symbols of their tribes, social clubs and sports teams, and that the current fad is in the same vein. Lois Weisberg, Chicago's cultural affairs commissioner, is less sure what it all means. "I cannot answer it," she says. "You wouldn't believe the number of people who are writing their masters thesis on this."
Weisberg herself dreamed up the idea for table tennis. Like many people, she had a Ping-Pong table gathering dust in her basement, but when her 7-year old grandson visited from Florida one weekend, the table sprang back into action. He kept challenging people to play and didn't emerge from the basement for days. "It's a marvelous family activity and it really is dead," Weisberg says. "The idea was to bring Ping-Pong out of the basement and put it into the streets and public places."
On the heels of all the bovine boosterism, the best thing about Ping- Pong--at least for cattle-weary residents--was that it wasn't cows. Yet it was similarly peculiar and nostalgic enough to bring smiles to people's faces. Ping-Pong wasn't a smash hit like the cows were, but it was more interactive. In Daley Plaza, tourists could be seen squaring off with business people on their lunch breaks.
Next summer's furniture exhibit may test the public's appetite for these kinds of events. Organizers admit they're wary of the possibility of overkill, and recognize that sofas and footstools don't have quite the same mass appeal as animals, especially among children. In the case of the cows, the tie-in to Mrs. O'Leary's barn, where the Chicago Fire allegedly began, seemed clear. When event planners point to the city's history as a hub of furniture design, it's hard not to think that Chicago's stockyards were much more famous.
Tom Mitchell is optimistic, however. Furniture, he says, has a big thing going for it: You can sit on it and have your picture taken. "If you like art that's critical, intelligent and controversial, this stuff is totally forgettable," Mitchell says. "On the other hand, Matisse said that the kind of art he wanted to make was for the tired businessman. And what else is this? It's art to rest on."
The staying power of such displays, however, may have less to do with artistic sensibilities than money-making. In funding the cow exhibit, Chicago came up with a public-private partnership that didn't cost the city a dime and still raised millions for charity. Other cities copied the formula, and it works so well that it seems inevitable they'll keep trying their hands at it. (May we suggest foosball?) It also seems inevitable that for the foreseeable future, cities can continue looking to Chicago for inspiration. "We're not trying to think too hard about this," Weisberg says. "We're just trying to have fun."
