What does it mean? It’s three stories tall and staring at me, it must mean something. Does the size indicate man’s growing influence on the world, and all he surveys? It is reminding us that Big Brother lives among us? Is the artist a huge fan of Visine?
Not so much.
It’s a thirty-foot spherical statue of an eyeball, and it sits in the garden of the Joule Hotel in Dallas, Texas. It’s called, appropriately, “Eye” and it was debuted in Chicago’s Pritzker Park as part of a larger art exhibit.
It was designed to be as realistic as possible. To that end, the artist, Tony Tasset, used a reference that was readily available: his own eye.
Anyone wanting to go up and touch Eye… can’t. It’s blocked off by a fence, preventing accidental damage. But it is readily visible from the street, and anyone can stand, well, fairly near to it. It’s thirty feet tall. You don’t have to be very close to see the details.
But, what does it mean? Let’s hear it from the artist himself:
Eye is really just an eye. “People have been so conditioned to not understand art that when something’s obvious they feel like they’re missing something,” Tasset says. “It’s a big eyeball.”
Interview
So if you want to see some really cool giant art that gives the back of the hand to deeper meaning, shallower meaning, or really meaning at all other than “That’s fairly cool,” a trip to Dallas might be in your future.
Eye will be watching for you.
Question of the night: What’s a city you’d like to visit (for the first time, or again) and why?