CHICAGO COWS ON PARADE EXHIBIT

Chicago's Cows on Parade Art Exhibit
Jun. 15 - Oct. 31, 1999

Hundreds of cows promenade through the streets of Chicago. No, it's not the return of the stockyards. These life-size bovine beauties are works of art that were painted, pomaded and all dressed up for the city by Chicago artists, architects, photographers and designers, including several celebrities. Chicago's 1999 summer public art display was originally conceived by Beat Seeberger-Quin and presented in Zurich, Switzerland, during the summer of 1998.

Content
To see other pictures of the cows from the Cows on Parade art exhibit,
Go to Cow Gallery Page Home - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12

For a complete list of names, locations, artists, and sponsors, review the Master Cow Chart. For history and background, see an Overview of the USA Today article on the Cow Parade.

Background

Maps of individual cows and herds should be available at the Chicago Cultural Center and visitor information centers in July. Look for the O'Leary memorial cow, a Millennium Cow and cows covered in Astro Turf. Two cows will be raised and lowered as appendages to the State Street bridge over the Chicago River, while the bridge house becomes a "Cow Moo-seum" during the exhibit.

The 300 life-size exhibition cows have set off what looks to be a summer-long cow mania here. Michigan Avenue retailers and downtown hoteliers plan to milk Chicago's cow craze for every drop.

On tap: hotel packages that feature cameras for cow picture-taking; restaurants poised to begin serving Black Cow ice cream specialties in souvenir cow cups, and a plethora of related merchandise — from T-shirts to do-it-yourself miniature cow painting kits — lined up to hit the streets in the next few weeks.

And why not? Cows on Parade is Chicago's most popular public art exhibit, udders down. It's expected to draw more than 1 million additional tourists to Chicago this summer, which translates to roughly $100 million to $200 million in revenue, according to the Chicago Office of Tourism.

A mere two weeks after the first cows moseyed onto the scene, cow mania is in full stampede, and local retailers, giddy from the international media coverage, are looking for their own choice cut.

Besides official Cows on Parade™ T-shirts and caps for $15 each, jackets for $60, plush toys for $6 and postcards, bovine devotees soon will be able to pick-up white resin, paint-your-own miniature cow kits for $10 and cowbell necklaces in gift shops and at street carts.

About 300 local businesses purchased the cows, priced between $2,500 and $11,000, which were painted, dressed and accessorized by about as many local artists. The sale of the cows is expected to cover the estimated $750,000 in artists' fees, the cost to ship and install the herd and an abundance of promotional maps and brochures. The exhibit, which runs through October, also received a $100,000 grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs.

Other Chicago Art Cow Links

In fairness to the competition, you can check out other Cows on Parade art exhibit content at the following sites:

Cows & Commentary Site, see it here.
The City of Chicago site has few pictures but lots of other information, see it here.
A recent USA Today article is linked here.
Chicago's Metromix has a complete archive of cow photos too, click here.
Here is the About.com site link, click here.
The Zurich, Switzerland 1998 event cow site is interesting, see it here.
One of the Zurich artists, Andi Luzi's web site with beautiful pictures here.
A very slow web site with cow pictures here.
A photo essay on the cows is shown here.
Kasey Ignarski's personal cow pages here.
To see how one group from Washington DC enjoyed the cows, look here.