With just two busy weeks to go before the official start of ArtPrize, I simply had to see how Jeff Zimmermann, the Chicago artist who is painting an absolutely huge mural on the side of the Kendall College of Art and Design building, is progressing. Here are a few shots to compare with earlier photos of this mammoth installation.
Here’s what Zimmermann wrote on his ArtPrize page about his Mural
“I will go prospecting in the streets around the area of the work site and take photos of locals to later use as references in the finished artwork. The immediate environment and its inhabitants help bring gestalten to my murals. This is key to the artistic process and, for me, creates legitimacy. It’s nice to ponder things with the community, over time, through a work of art.
If a mural is successful, the public will share ideas and discoveries they’ve made with others around them, or an idea will stick in their mind. Public art already has an advantage as it’s understood to be “of the community” and therefore it’s perception comes democratically. My artwork is intended to be neutral. I do not wish to provide answers, but rather attempt to spark dialogue.”
It will be up to the public to determine if he is successful.
Here’s the artist and team hard at work. I’ll be back in a week or so to check the progress as the countdown to ArtPrize opening day continues.
DesignDestinations 
Unbelievable talent. I can’t imagine how you work in such a large scale. You have to visualize the “big picture” standing a mere inch from the wall.
The images of the girl’s head with eyes closed and open make me think of the tall falling water forms in Millennium Park in Chicago with the faces of local Chicagoans changing every moment or so. They’re not just any faces but the faces of people who make up the community. It is their place. I begin to wander all over the place in my mind thinking about place, authenticity, community, ownership, identification, belonging; the list goes on.
Do artists connect us to our ‘place’ and help us see it in a different light? Is part of their role to get us thinking about things in new ways? There is a sort of aura of color around the heads of many figures in thus mural that makes me wonder what they are thinking about though they are but paint on brick.
It’s exciting, isn’t it?
Pingback: ArtPrize moves into the last week | DesignDestinations