It looked like former art dealer and wannabe kingpin Paul Klein was trying to have it both ways back in June. Spearheading a protest of the city’s proposed new public-art ordinance, he e-mailed a break-your-chains manifesto and posted it on his Web site, Art Letter. Klein was attempting to rouse art workers to support an alternate ordinance and flex their muscle at a rally at the foot of the Picasso. “Do you understand why the Mayor doesn’t care about you–the Chicago artist?” he wrote. “Because you haven’t made yourself seen and you haven’t made yourself heard enough.” Among the problems with the city’s proposal, he said, was that the city gets “to keep their inbred selection process whereby they dip into their archaic database, pick whoever they want. . . . and [do] not have to tell artists why or how they chose.” With the city’s revisions, he warned, “a closed doors, patronage system” would be assured.
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Klein’s call to arms, quickly disseminated over the Internet, reopened a barely healed wound. His foe of a few years, painter Wesley Kimler, smelled blood and, despite a recent truce, went on the attack. In a series of long, nasty blog comments at badatsports.com, Kimler and others pushed for an answer to an obvious question: Why was Klein leading a protest against undemocratic selection processes when he’d quietly handpicked all the artists for one of the largest publicly funded art projects in the city’s history–$2 million worth of commissions for McCormick Place West, which opened earlier this month?
Klein’s selections were on view at McCormick Place West’s official opening. Although two major works (including a $200,000 multimedia installation by former Klein gallery artist Sabrina Raaf) in the 50-piece permanent collection weren’t up yet, everything else was in place, scattered throughout the building. In a promotional video created for the opening, Klein explains that he wanted the mostly massive works to be “diverse” and “accessible” and expresses his hope that the audience of conventioneers will “have a good time” with them. He has also said he wants to find a way for locals to see the art but hasn’t figured one out. Right now–unless you’re there for an event or unless public access is attached to the financial rescue package McPier has been trying to float for itself in Springfield–you’ll have to slip past security to get a look.
