Public Art on the Chicago Riverwalk
The Chicago Public Art Collection includes more than 500 works of art exhibited in over 150 municipal facilities around the city, such as police stations, libraries, and CTA stations. As part of the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Public Art Program administers the Chicago Public Art Collection and implements the City’s Percent for Art Ordinance.
The Public Art Program includes exhibits along the Chicago Riverwalk pedestrian trail. In addition to the glorious views of architecturally significant skyscrapers which create an urban canyon along the Main Branch of the Chicago River, the City has permanent public art and rotating exhibits featured throughout your experience.
Allium
By Carolyn Ottmers, installed September 14, 2015
Riverwalk Location- between Columbus Drive and Lake Shore Drive
The ten-foot-tall cast aluminum sculpture was created in 2004. Allium is one sculpture in a series of three, along with Parsnip and Shepherd’s Purse, collectively called “Equilibrium.” The trio is modeled after plants that grow in Chicago and actually clean up the soil.
Echo Hecho Fresco
By Alberto Aguilar, CDOT traffic paint on wall, 2019
“After spending time on the Riverwalk I’ve come to understand it as a transient space. This zigzag pattern, which moves in multiple directions, reflects the constant movement of people through the tunnel, cars on the bridge above, boats below, as well as the river’s flow. I used Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) traffic and pedestrian paint, which in a sense makes it a mural for the people. It’s simple in design but complex in its arrangement of color value. Applied with a 4” roller, it has an immediacy which reveals my moves and accidents. Made with a grid, it’s also regulated and measured, allowing the eye to make up for its imperfections. Now that you’ve seen it up close,I recommend viewing the mural from the opposite side of the river.”—Alberto Aguilar
Riverwalk Gateway
By Ellen Lanyon, dedicated June 24, 2000
Riverwalk location - beneath the Lake Shore Drive Bridge
This trellised, cast-concrete 127 foot long walkway is designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill linking the Chicago Riverwalk with Chicago’s lakefront. It includes 28 ceramic panels that depict the rise of Chicago and the significance of the river to the city. There are 14 panels on each side which present a pictorial narrative of the City’s history as it is entwined to the Chicago River.
The Radiance of Being
By Kate Lynn Lewis, 2020
The Chicago Riverwalk’s Community Marketplace, just west of Michigan Avenue, is home to the mural The Radiance of Being, designed and painted by Chicago-based artist Kate Lynn Lewis. The mural celebrates 100 years of Art Deco architecture. The lead artist and her all-female crew completed the mural spanning over 180 feet tall on two level. In the artist’s own illustrative style, the scene is composed of motifs from some of Chicago’s Art Deco buildings, including the Chicago Motor Club, the St Jane, One N. LaSalle, 10 W. Elm St, the Palmolive Building, the Palmer House, the Adler Planetarium and many others. One of the Community Marketplace interior walls shows a map of where these buildings can be found in the city.
“The Riverwalk is surrounded on all angles by art deco architecture, so it felt like a great opportunity to expound on the immersive experience of painting a deco collage inspired by motifs found in the area” said artist Kate Lynn Lewis.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
By Gary Tillery, dedicated on Veterans Day, November 11, 2005
One of the largest memorials in the nation outside of Washington, D.C., it includes the names of more than 2,900 Illinois servicemen killed or missing in action, an engraved timeline of historically significant events during the waterfall into a fountain, a plaque wall, and engraved granite pavers from the city’s original memorial.
Kin Link
By Leonard Suryajaya, Dedication Event on October 18, 2023, Michigan Avenue going east
Five recently installed large-scale public art banners along the Chicago Riverwalk by acclaimed local artist Leonard Suryajaya. Titled Kin Link, the artwork is a vision of an immigrant’s experience of the city through a queer lens that offers and creates space for differing patterns and identities to exist in cohesion. It considers the overlapping of family with kinship, and the knotty relationship between home and diaspora spanning from Indonesia to the United States.
Del Otro Lado/The Other Side
As part of the O'Hare International Airport Terminal 5 Expansion Project, the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and the Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) commissioned the most significant single acquisition of works by Chicago artists by the City in the last 30 years.
This $3.5 million project presented a unique opportunity to invest in 19 Chicago artists and creative professionals while providing international visitors a dynamic and welcoming first impression of our city.
DCASE has selected five artworks from the exhibition, Del Otro Lado/ The Other Side, located in the International Arrivals Corridor, to display on the Riverwalk. We want to celebrate the artists who welcome the world to our city by showcasing their work on the Riverwalk.