Arts & Entertainment
Large-Scale Art Installation Greets Visitors at Shedd Aquarium’s Reimagined Front Entrance
A school of 1,600 porcelain fish hangs in the new entryway of Shedd Aquarium. The fish are based on hand-carved wooden prototypes from artist David Franklin. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
A school of fish will soon dangle over the schools of visitors in the new entryway of Shedd Aquarium.
Above the escalators, 1,600 porcelain fish hang down in a swirling mass. Each life-sized creature is made of white porcelain and based on hand-carved wooden prototypes. They represent native species found in Lake Michigan, including perch, trout and bass.
On Wednesday, construction walls come down to unveil a new main entrance at Shedd Aquarium. The entrance will open just south of the original entry point, which dates from the building’s opening in 1930.
Inside the new space, twin escalators lead to the original Grand Hall. Guests now have other options, too — go right for a shortcut to belugas, dolphins and otters. Or go left and catch an elevator up or down.
First, take a ride on the escalator and look up.
The moving stairs seem to put the giant school of porcelain fish above you into motion, and the gleaming white forms reflect the nearby lights for a kaleidoscope effect.
Hold onto the guardrail because the overhead artwork is hypnotic. I found myself slowly turning around on the step while ascending. Not quite seasickness, but it has a dizzying effect.
“It was a two-year process,” artist David Franklin told WTTW News. “We did a computer model of the space, and the number came up to 1,600 fish when we counted them on the 3D model, so that was the goal.”
“The idea was to provide this experience of being like a scuba diver — you come in and you’re at the bottom of the lake looking up,” Franklin said. “Then you rise up through the fish into that Grand Hall, which is so fantastic. It had to hold up to that standard.”
Franklin carved models from wood and then spent months at the Kohler Co. manufacturing plant in Wisconsin, famous for urinals and bath fixtures.
“There’s eight wooden small fish and wooden models of the larger fish,” Franklin said. “We made plaster molds and cast multiples of both. We were in the Kohler factory working side by side with the urinal people. It was the urinal people, the sink people, and then we were the fish people.”
A school of 1,600 porcelain fish hangs in the new entryway of Shedd Aquarium. The fish are based on hand-carved wooden prototypes from artist David Franklin. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
Of course you won’t find Asian carp overhead.
“We went with fish indigenous to the lake, ones that kind of shape the culture of the Midwest with Friday fish fries and all that,” Franklin said. “It’s part of the fabric of Midwestern life, and we wanted to tap into those because it really reaches that home audience.”
Franklin isn’t from the region. He grew up in Colorado, and WTTW News spoke with the artist by phone from his studio outside of Seattle, Washington.
“Where we live in the West these are not our native fish, so it was a discovery process,” Franklin said. “Every fish was a new creature to learn about. I’d send pictures to the Shedd experts, who’d give feedback to make sure I got things right.”
He discovered that Midwesterners often have a favorite fish.
“People got excited about them,” Franklin said. “There’s a lot of people who are into fishing for pike, for example. And then you make a pike and those people go crazy. It was fun to discover people through the fishes they appreciate.”
The largest fish in the installation are the sturgeon, which weigh 25 pounds each. The entire sculpture weighs more than 3,000 pounds and took a full month to install.
It’s the artist’s inaugural installation in the city, and he hopes it makes a splash.
“This is our first project in Chicago, and we were excited to build it,” Franklin said. “To have a project of this scale in that location in a city like Chicago is a dream come true. It’s incredible, and what a great way to honor this amazing ecosystem that is all around everybody.”
Marc Vitali is the JCS Fund of the DuPage Foundation Arts Correspondent.
