Jaume Plensa's Looking Into My Dreams, Awilda during Millennium Park's 10th anniversary installation at Boeing Galleries
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Established | June 2005 |
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Location |
Millennium Park Chicago, Illinois United States |
Type | open-air gallery |
Public transit access |
Millennium Station - Metra Monroe/State (CTA) - Red Line Randolph/Wabash (CTA) -Brown, Purple, Green, Orange, and Pink Monroe/Dearborn (CTA) - Blue Line |
Website | http://www.millenniumpark.org/parkevents/ |
Boeing Galleries (North Boeing Gallery and South Boeing Gallery) are a pair of outdoor exhibition spaces within Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. The spaces are located along the south and north mid-level terraces, above and east of Wrigley Square and the Crown Fountain. In a conference at the Chicago Cultural Center, Boeing President and Chief Executive Officer James Bell to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley announced Boeing would make a $5 million grant to fund both the construction of and an endowment for the space.
Lying between Lake Michigan to the east and the Loop to the west, Grant Park has been Chicago's front yard since the mid 19th century. Its northwest corner, north of Monroe Street and the Art Institute, east of Michigan Avenue, south of Randolph Street, and west of Columbus Drive, had been Illinois Central rail yards and parking lots until 1997, when it was made available for development by the city as Millennium Park. Today, Millennium Park trails only Navy Pier as a Chicago tourist attraction.
The city sought Boeing's financial support in the form of a $6 million donation. The purpose of the eventual $5 million donation was to fund a space for use as open-air gallery spaces to accommodate regular exhibitions of both visual arts and sculpture. The exhibitions primarily occur in the spring and summer months. The galleries were commissioned in December 2004 (after the park's first summer), and they provide necessary formal space for the presentation of public exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. Boeing also previously funded the Family Album photograph exhibition that debuted in Millennium Park during its opening weekend.