A cool installation for Millenium Park

Moniker cool, creator says of Millennium art

By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah | Tribune staff reporter

"Popsicle" sticks.

The nickname for a proposed ice sculpture in Millennium Park, coined in a Tribune headline Thursday, is fine with Canadian artist Gordon Halloran, he said as he announced plans for the multicolored wall of ice.

The installation, officially named "Paintings Below Zero," is scheduled to be on display Feb. 1 through Feb. 29. Standing 13 feet high and stretching 95 feet across the promenade, it will face another sculpture with a catchy moniker: the "Bean."

Halloran said he had a feeling Chicago would find a nickname for his piece, which in places will have brightly painted sheets of ice in Popsicle colors, lime green and cherry red, along with pigmented shards of ice jutting out.

"I was thinking of the 'Bean' and I knew I wouldn't have a choice in it," he said.

Warming to the subject, he said his ice sculpture would be pop art, and he'd like it to be popular.

"I'm hoping [the nickname] will catch people's imagination and they'll want to come and see it," he said.

But he warned people not to get carried away with the Popsicle idea and get their tongues stuck to it.

Halloran spoke Thursday at a news conference, at which a computer-generated rendering of his wall was unveiled.

Visitors will be able to touch parts of the wall.

With lighting from the back and front of the sculpture, art enthusiasts will be able to watch pigments interact with ice crystals as the surface evaporates, melts and freezes. It will be kept frozen by chilled glycol running through aluminum panels at the core of the wall.

The project will also feature a painting in the park's ice rink over which people can skate.

The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, which is organizing the event, hopes to attract tourists and residents to the park with free, ice-related activities built around the display.