Back in 2010, we brought you news of artist Tony Tasset's sculpture, "Eye" (created in 2007) that was set to be displayed for several months in Chicago's Pritzker Park. The giant eyeball was originally commissioned as part of the Chicago Loop Alliance's Art Loop program. After being displayed in Chicago, the 30-foot-tall fiberglass, resin, oil paint, and steel sculpture, which was modeled after Tasset's own blue eyes, was exhibited in 2011 at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2013 it made its way to Texas, where it currently resides in the garden at the Joule Hotel in downtown Dallas. Atlas Obscura explains:
It was purchased by the hotel as part of their expansive art collection, and to anchor their downtown location and its sculpture garden.
Tasset denies any deep symbolism behind the work, stating in an interview with the website Co. Design that he "just wanted to make something awesome." As startled passersby generally agree, he succeeded.
The Laumeier Sculpture Park website describes the massive eyeball, which has a 452 inch circumference:
Through this gigantic, blue eyeball, Tasset creates tension as the sculpture stares—larger than life—across the landscape and back at the viewer . . . The human eye is simultaneously unique, individual and emblematic; by focusing on a key part of the body, Tasset speaks to a commonality among us, addressing how we engage and perceive each other while concurrently asserting a prophetic, perhaps even omniscient, presence.
The Laumeier Sculpture Park website provides this bio of artist Tony Tasset:
Tony Tasset was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1960. He received his B.F.A. at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 1983 and his M.F.A. at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1985. Tasset works with video, photography, bronze, wax, fiberglass, film and even taxidermy. His work employs wisdom and wit and continuously contends with the trappings of Modernism, Postmodern theory, pop culture and the universal human emotions associated with love, loss, frailty and beauty. Tasset's work is in the permanent collections of prestigious museums including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Museum Für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, among others. He has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world, including Canada, Ecuador, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Laumeier presented a solo Tasset exhibition in 2007 entitled Tony Tasset: All Things Must Pass.
My eyeballs really need to see this giant eyeball, in person. It's definitely on my to-do list!
