Seven Arrested After “The Bean” by Anish Kapoor Was Defaced in Chicago
The police found Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate” sculpture at the city’s Millennium Park covered in graffiti.
Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate” in Millennium Park in Chicago (via Roberto Bolaños’s Flickrstream)
Police in Chicago took seven people into custody Tuesday morning after vandals had defaced artist Anish Kapoor’s sculpture “Cloud Gate,” colloquially known as “The Bean,” at Millennium Park.
Authorities say they found Kapoor’s sculpture covered in graffiti Tuesday morning after responding to a trespassing call in Millennium Park shortly after midnight. The monumental sculpture’s stainless-steel reflective surface was tagged with “35th Crew” in silver spray near the bottom. Similar scrawlings were found at the Cancer Survivors’ Garden at Maggie Daley Park in downtown Chicago. The suspects have yet been charged. The police investigation continues.
Inaugurated in 2005, Kapoor’s monumental “Cloud Gate”, more commonly known as “The Bean” for its shape, weighs 110 tons and rises to the height of 66-feet. It is considered one of Chicago’s most visited attractions. The work has also been the subject of a series of memesthat suggested to Windex it, bake it, and turn it into coffee, among other peculiar tributes to, or lighthearted pokes at, its iconic bean shape.
