Flamingo

Equally playful, elegant and sophisticated, Flamingo expresses in abstract form the lightness and agility suggested by its avian title.  Installed at the Chicago Federal Center in 1974, the sculpture stands in dramatic contrast to the rigorously restrained architecture of Mies van der Rohe.  The artwork’s brilliant color, curvilinear forms, and soaring height help humanize an environment dominated by skyscrapers and paved surfaces. Beloved by the public, the sculpture is seen and admired each day by thousands of Chicago’s residents and visitors.

Not long after Flamingo’s debut, art critic Benjamin Forgey wrote in The Washington Star:

“Last October, the first of the [GSA’s] new fine arts projects was dedicated, an enormous set of irregular, interlocked, orange-painted steel arches designed by the grand-daddy of American sculpture—76-year-old Alexander Calder.

“Art is by no means a frill but a necessity in a vigorous, self-confident culture.  It should be a matter of great pride in this country that the federal government is trying to seek out the very best artists in the land and to give them the opportunity and the challenge to make some sort of meaningful statement in symbolic public spaces.  By the looks of things, GSA seems to be doing just that.

“The GSA program should be a cause for general celebration.”

In 2012, GSA’s Fine Arts Program completed a major conservation project to repair and protect this cherished artwork for the continued enjoyment of all.