Best Public Art, Reader's Choice: Living 2007

Lloyd Degrane

Reader’s Choice

Living 2007

I saw it for the first time at night, its winding, spiraling vein of mirror shards glittering from the north wall of the Lake Shore Drive underpass at Bryn Mawr. Created last summer by Tracy Van Duinen and a team that included 29 “youth artists,” this 185-foot mosaic tribute to Edgewater employs some of the usual iconography of community-made public art: the clump of characteristic buildings, the spreading tree, the el train, the noble quotes. But Edgewater’s proximity to, well, the edge of the water also gave Van Duinen a chance to connect the piece to images and rhythms of Lake Michigan. A bicyclist pedals toward birds rising above a tai chi practitioner gesturing in the direction of a child with bucket and shovel, who may yet discover the trilobite in the corner. And the whole rolls like waves. That watery pulse together with a playful use of color and texture make this an extraordinary work. A companion mosaic goes up on the south wall this summer. —Tony Adler

Readers’ Choice

Cloud Gate

 AT&T Plaza, Millennium Park, 312-742-1168, millenniumpark.org.

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