Shawyer dissertation May 2008 final version - The University of ...

Chapter ThreeThe Festival of Life: Form Made into ChaosAbandon the Creeping Meatball!—Yippie Chicago slogan (Hoffman, Revolution 102)With an expression of permanent surprise, the large steel sculpture looks down onChicago’s Civic Center Plaza. Although its fifty feet of steel tower above the scurryingpedestrians rushing to appointments at the Cook County courts, Picasso’s abstractcreation is itself dwarfed by the gleaming steel-and-glass Civic Center, the tallestbuilding in the city of Chicago. Across the street the classical columns of the stately oldCity Hall offer incongruous juxtaposition. Here at the center of Chicago civic life,tradition meets innovation: architecture and art combine to form a welcoming publicspace for the citizens of Chicago.This warm August day in 1968, the plaza buzzes with a tense anticipation. Severalhundred people swarm beneath Picasso’s sculpture: there are uniformed police and plainclothesofficers, journalists with notepads and cameras at the ready, curious passers-bywondering what all the fuss is about, and several dozen scraggly Yippies—long hairedyouths carrying mock campaign signs and electoral pamphlets. The journalists areexpecting a news conference, the police are waiting for trouble to erupt, the Yippies areanticipating a good time poking fun at the Establishment, and the inquisitive onlookers donot know what to think. It appears to be a political rally: there are waving signs and147