1980 CHICAGO
DESCRIPTION
An imaginative and popular 1980s view of Chicago that places the city at the center of the world, with vast distances compressed across the horizon.
Dominated by the Sears Tower and John Hancock Center, the skyline rises dramatically from Lake Michigan while trains, automobiles, cyclists, runners, skaters, and pedestrians animate the city below. The historic Water Tower stands among the modern skyscrapers, creating a lively portrait of Chicago at a moment when its dramatic skyline had become one of the most recognizable in America. Signed Joh. H. Zwierzchowski and D. Hale and copyrighted 1980, the work combines cityscape, pictorial map, and geographic satire.
The Steinbergian World View
The unusual perspective belongs to a style commonly described as a “View of the World” or Steinbergian pictorial map, popularized by Saul Steinberg's celebrated View of the World from 9th Avenue, published on the cover of The New Yorker in 1976. Steinberg exaggerated Manhattan in the foreground while dramatically compressing the rest of the United States and world toward the horizon, humorously presenting geography according to local perception rather than physical distance. The image became enormously influential and inspired countless adaptations centered on other cities during the late 1970s and 1980s.
This Chicago interpretation follows that tradition particularly well. Beyond the city, Peoria, Iowa, Aspen, and the Rocky Mountains quickly give way to the Pacific, while the curved horizon carries the viewer across the Atlantic to Europe, Asia, and the USSR. The Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, distant skyscrapers, mountains, and other familiar symbols are compressed into a deliberately impossible geography, while Chicago remains enormous and richly detailed in the foreground.
CONDITION
1200 W. 35th Street #425 Chicago, IL 60609 | P: (312) 496 - 3622