Image courtesy of The Paint Gary Public Art .
The Paint Gary Public Art initiative is seeking to enliven the Steel City's downtown with a splash of color and by preserving a notable sculpture it hopes to kindle new public appreciation for.
Paint Gary is working to conserve the outdoor Richard Hunt sculpture at the Adam Benjamin Jr. Metro Center at Gateway Park. It also brought in artists to paint three more murals to make the downtown more aesthetically appealing.
Artists Zach Medler of Lafayette and Nick Fury of Chicago painted at Gateway Park and the historic Union Station. They replaced murals that suffered damage from the weather and other environmental conditions.
Paint Gary founder Lauren M. Pacheco, a Miller-based artist who co-chairs the Chicago Humanities Festival, said it was always the plan to freshen up the public art where needed every few years.
Paint Gary also is working this year to convert Hunt's "Interchange" sculpture that the city commissioned in 1985 at the Metro Center, which was designed by the prominent African-American architect Wendell Campbell.
The sculpture is outside the Metro Center, where visitors take trains and buses to destinations across the Region, the city of Chicago and beyond.
“‘Interchange’ is an impressive vertical welded stainless-steel sculpture complimented by an additional Hunt commission, ‘Dune Growth,’ found inside the Adam Benjamin Jr. Metro Transit Center," Pacheco said.
"‘Dune Growth’ is particularly curious and interesting because of its integration into the architecture of the building extending above and below a set of stairs. It’s so a part of the built environment that you might almost miss it.”
Hunt's almost-40-year-old sculpture is "one of Gary’s most prominent and significant public art pieces,” she said.
“Paint Gary is in a unique position to serve as caretaker of the Hunt sculpture and develop a plan to ensure its long-term preservation," she said. "I’ve become deeply concerned about the work of art and its decades-long exposure to the elements and potential damage from lack of regular inspection and maintenance.