Agora, Grant Park's iron sculptures, might have to relocate in 2026
The sculpture Agora — a striking work composed of 106 9-foot tall iron human figures — has been a fixture on the southern edge of Grant Park for nearly 20 years.
But the artwork might have to take a hike next August.
That's when the Chicago Park District's 20-year installation and maintenance agreement expires. The agreement allows Agora to occupy its Hutchinson Field location.
The expiration doesn't make the artwork's relocation a certainty, but one of the proposals in the park district's new Grant Park Framework Plan includes refashioning Hutchinson Field into a "neighborhood-oriented amenity" — and it doesn't mention Agora sticking around.
"As it relates to the installation's future, the Chicago Park District's framework plan creates an opportunity to think about this part of the park, including considerations for the sculpture to remain or for new visions of the space," a spokesperson for the district said.
Installed in 2006, Agora is the work of internationally celebrated Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz, who died in 2017 at age 86.
The cast iron figures — some in stride while others stand — occupy a 3-acre site in the park, near Roosevelt Road and Michigan Avenue.
Agora is one of the park's most popular sculptures, inviting people to enter the artwork and walk among the shapes.
"Oh, my god, this work absolutely should not be moved," said Mary Jane Jacob, artistic director of the Abakanowicz Arts and Culture Charitable Foundation.
"What a tragedy that would be. What a loss for Chicago. Agora was always intended for that site — a site-specific, majestic work, whose location signals it is for all people of Chicago," Jacob said.
Abakanowicz is viewed as one of Poland's most influential postwar artists. Her work sits in prestigious museums around the world, including Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art and the Art Institute.
The Polish Ministry of Culture, along with Poland's Wielkopolska Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts, permanently loaned Agora to the city and funded its creation and installation. Private donors also contributed, including late actor Robin Williams, who ponied-up $700,000.
"We live in times which are extraordinary because of their various forms of aggression," Abakanowicz, describing Agora, once said, according to her foundation. "Today, new danger exists around us as if everyone were against everyone. Agora should become a symbol, a metaphor about this particular historical moment in which we need each other, in which we want to rely on each other more than ever."
Agora is Abakanowicz's largest permanent work.
"This city was beneficiary of a great work, which is also the last and most important outdoor project by an artist whose power and reputation has only continued to grow since her death," Jacob said.
With a name taken from the Greek word for an open space where people meet, Agora's size, design and look enlivened what had been a drab and less-visited corner of Grant Park along Michigan Avenue.
The location gives the work room enough breathe and accommodate those who want to stroll and stand among the rough-hewn structures.
Finding Agora another site this good in Grant Park is a tall order.
"Grant Park is this great French Renaissance landscape and the formality of that landscape always lent itself well to various sculptural installations," said Julia Bachrach, historian and author of "The City in a Garden: A History of Chicago’s Parks."
"[But] the southwest edge of the park at the time when [Agora] was being installed was a very kind of unfinished edge of the park," she said. "The Agora installation really made that part of the park."
Meanwhile, the park district is seeking public feedback on its framework plan — including what should happen at Hutchinson Field — until mid-September.