Chicago's Picasso Gets A 50th Birthday Party (With Protests) In The Loop

City officials hosted a rededication ceremony Tuesday for "Everyone's Picasso," which was first unveiled in 1967 to many Chicagoans' horror.

Chicago's Picasso Turns 50

THE LOOP — Local pols and fans of public art threw a 50th birthday party Tuesday for the 50-foot-tall Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza, but the ceremony was disrupted by loud anti-Rahm protests.

The untitled Picasso drew gasps when it was first unveiled by Mayor Richard J. Daley in 1967, but is now known as one of the Loop's most recognizable sights.

Even today, the sculpture stands as a symbol of a part of town that remains equally glitzy and out of reach to children who live in many of Chicago's neighborhoods, speakers at Tuesday's ceremony said. To those kids, many of whom slide on the sculpture's steel slopes in the summer, the Picasso at 50 W. Washington St. is a place where they can sit and dream.

"I was one of those kids," said Carlos Tortolero, president of the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen. "I had no idea what this was, and here I am."

The ceremony Tuesday afternoon was a recreation of the sculpture's 1967 unveiling, which put off many Chicagoans who thought the piece was a big, tall joke.

The rededication was mostly more amiable, featuring performances from the After School Matters Orchestra and Chicago Children's Choir. Nora Brooks Blakely, the daughter of former Illinois poet laureate Gwendolyn Brooks, recited her mother's poem that was used to dedicate the sculpture 50 years ago.

But the ceremony was disrupted by two protesters who used the occasion to call out Mayor Rahm Emanuel. One protester, Nataki Rhodes, chanted "16 Shots And A Coverup" in honor of police shooting victim Laquan McDonald before police made her cut off her megaphone.

David Pikor, a local carpenter, decried recent layoffs at Chicago Public Schools and other controversies during Emanuel's tenure.

"(The speakers are) lawyers and lackeys on stage, they will betray you in a heartbeat," Pikor said. "Lolla, Uber, Aramark, who owns them?"

^{Rhodes chanting into the megaphone Thursday at Daley Plaza. [DNAinfo/David Matthews]}

Some of the speakers acknowledged the city's divisions.

"Chicago is a complex and often conflicted city," said Mark Kelly of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. But that conflict often "engenders a deep creative urge" that includes a "world-class" collection of public art, he said. Kelly mentioned the destroyed Wall of Respect, an ode to black voices that is also celebrating its 50th anniversary after being first painted in 1967 in Grand Boulevard.

Emanuel, while talking over the protesters, called the Loop's Picasso debut a "critical inflection point in Chicago's story" that inspired other public art throughout the city.

"It is called 'Everyone's Picasso' because it belongs to all of us," he said.

Tuesday's rededication preceded a special film screening Aug. 15 at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St., dedicated to the Picasso unveiling in 1967. Emanuel has declared 2017 the city's "year of public art."

"To remain a great city, the urban core needs to remain vibrant," said Jacqueline Terrassa, chair of learning and public engagement at the Art Institute of Chicago, which keeps a maquette, or model of the big sculpture in its collection.

Betty Ritchie of Norwood Park saw the 1967 unveiling in Daley Plaza. She said Picasso's debut was "dramatic" and met with scorn from spectators. Picasso allegedly crossed images of a woman and an Afghan dog to show some sort of metamorphosis many Chicagoans didn't get.

"We stood there and gasped," Ritchie said. "It was something you had to get used to."

Ritchie said she's learned to love the sculpture, especially when she sees children play on it now. But the piece, Picasso's first large public work in the United States, still confuses many Chicagoans, including Ritchie.

"It'll always be a flying horse to me," she said.

^{Pikor protests the Picasso rededication. [DNAinfo/David Matthews]}