Sculpture and Sound in the Windy City: Harry Bertoia's Standard Oil Commission

• Published in: Public art dialogue 2019-01, Vol.9 (1), p.31-52
• Main Author: Sullivan, Marin R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 20th century; Bertoia, Harry; Metals; Public art; Public spaces; Sound sculpture
• ISSN: 2150-2552; 2150-2560
• DOI: 10.1080/21502552.2019.1571820

On Tuesday, June 24, 1975, Chicago city officials, art world aficionados, and hundreds of citizens gathered in the main plaza of the recently completed Standard Oil Building (now the Aon Center) to dedicate a sculpture commissioned for the site made by the Italian-American artist Harry Bertoia (Figure 1). Comprising 11 distinct units of tall, vertical beryllium copper rods, and arranged in a black granite-clad reflecting pool, very little about the sculpture or its dedication ceremony was standard (even for a city that had celebrated with great fanfare three other major public artworks by Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso in less than a decade). Attendees at the dedication witnessed the unveiling of the work and requisite by distinguished guests, sitting on the iconic chairs Bertoia designed for Knoll. They were also treated to what could be described as a of the work by the artist. After removing his suit jacket and putting on rubber boots, Bertoia waded out into the water, stick in hand, and to "play" the sculptural units, striking and strumming their narrow rods, causing them to reverberate off each other and generate a range of metallic tones (Figure 2). Though related to a much larger body of sculptures created by the artist that produced sound through external and manual activation, the Standard Oil commission instead drew on the specific conditions of site, and the inherent conditions of public space, to self-generate sound.