CHICAGO — Workers erected a temporary fence around a landmark sculpture in the Chicago federal building’s plaza on Tuesday after someone spent a lot of time defacing the artwork with countless messages this week.
Alexander Calder’s soaring, orange “Flamingo” sculpture is one of the most famous public art pieces in the city. But it’s going to be off-limits, at least for a while, while the messages are removed.
A source said security cameras at the Kluczynski Federal Building, 230 South Dearborn, captured images of the defacing in progress. But no arrests have been made.
The graffiti, a collection of seemingly unrelated names, statements, and references ranging from a man committed to a Hawaii psychiatric facility more than 30 years ago to a demand for money and “Prisident Obama Consitution Law,” is shown below.