Looks like Houston has a giant, shiny bean-shaped sculpture of its own now. Completing its two-day installation today, “Cloud Column” by Anish Kapoor — the same artist who created Chicago's infamous “Cloud Gate” — is the first of two sculptures on the Brown Foundation, Inc. Plaza at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's upcoming Glassell School of Art. The school and plaza, making up phase one of the museum's expansion, are scheduled to open May 20.
Conceived by Kapoor in the late 1990s and realized in 2006, Cloud Column is made of hand-worked stainless steel. Working for at least five hours early Monday morning, crews used a 650-ton crane to hoist up the 21,000-pound oblong sculpture (attached to a 6,000-pound crate) into its exact positioning on the plaza. After the sculpture was set in place, a member from Kapoor's London installation team buffed its stainless steel surface to its signature sheen.
Some might call the Cloud Column as just another Chicago Bean, but Kapoor claims the two sculptures are different, The Chicago Tribune writes in a biting article. According to MFAH Director Gary Tinterow in Houston Public Media, Cloud Column remained unfinished and stored in Kapoor's London workspace after the original commission fell through. In the meantime, Kapoor began to work on the Chicago Bean and other projects. MFAH acquired Cloud Column when they learned the sculpture was still available.
“When we had the opportunity several years ago to acquire this precursor to Chicago’s Cloud Gate, I could only imagine that it would be as extraordinary for this city as Anish’s work has been for Chicago,” Tinterow said in a statement.
In mid-April, Eduardo Chillida’s 1966 “Song of Strength” sculpture will be installed opposite of Cloud Column.
Watch the installation of Cloud Column in the video below.
5 Comments
Balir Kamin's column is hilarious, and totally in the vein of the tradition of mayors from Super Bowl towns taunting each other with silly challenges the week before the game. Chill, Houston. Enjoy your Suppository sculpture.
Searched that but got zip. Got a link?
The Chicago Cloud is cool. Part spectacle, part participatory.
My mistake, the article is by Kim Janssen, not Blair Kamin! Link above at "biting article", and this delightful followup banter: https://www.houstonchronicle.c...
an alternative plan done in the late '70s.
I've seen both, and I must say that the Houston museums's piece is pretty small and underwhelming compared with the Chicago sculpture. The new museum school building by Steven Holl is pretty bad as well. The outdoor spaces will be unusable most of the year in Houston's extremely hot and humid climate. The interior is a cautionary tale about what happens when the "let's make everything out of concrete" design idiom collides with less than stellar USA construction workmanship and the need for zillions of little MEP ceiling and wall warts everywhere.
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