Dallas Thrusts Itself Into Houston and Chicago’s Sculpture War — and It’s Time to Defend Our Bean: This Is No Copycat

However Houston’s newest public sculpture may be described — and the continuing civic battle over the purported “bean” now encompasses three cities with the addition of Houston’s arch-rival Dallas to the mix — it’s certainly become a conversation piece.

In fact, we Houstonians owe a debt of thanks to Chicago Tribune columnist Kim Janssen for kicking off an ongoing cross-country war of words by suggesting Houston was being “unoriginal” in getting what he called “its own bean sculpture” in the form of Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Column” — which he seemingly regards as a lesser version of Chicago’s “Cloud Gate” by the same sculptor. He then went on to describe Houston as a “cultureless abyss,” which naturally prompted a series of indignant retorts from multiple Houston Proud media oulets.

Now a Dallas Morning News writer has leapt into the Chicago-Houston dogfight on the basis that — unlike Houston’s arch-rival Dallas — Chicago has no standing to insult Houston or what he, too, called Houston’s “bean sculpture.” Charles Scudder notes the fact that for Dallasites, “throwing shade on Houston is a solemn responsibility,” and throws down with “Chicago, don’t you dare take this from us,” following up with a rapid series of jabs at both Chicago and Houston.

While we appreciate our fellow Texan coming to our defense in this manner, and the legitimacy of his argument, stemming from the two Texas cities’ longtime rivalry, we’re not quite sure how to take his backhanded compliment.

No Bean?

Amidst all this hubbub, it was no wonder that Kapoor’s “Cloud Column” is drawing curious spectators to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston campus to see the object of controversy for themselves.

Coming from the Sculpture Garden, one sees a giant, oblong-shaped, reflective silver object. Looking at the object on the other side, near the Glassell School of Art, one sees a rimmed, concave surface.

While few spectators ventured an interpretation of what they were viewing, a number of them agreed on what it was not.

“Definitely not a bean,” an observer responded when asked if he thought the object looked like a bean, as it has been popularly described in the media.

Others have professed to see “a space object” or “a spacecraft.”

“A wedding ring,” suggested a young man who was looking at the object from the Glassell side.

Speaking from my own perspective, the oblong silver object I saw close-up last weekend bore no resemblance to the images I’ve seen of Chicago’s self-described “bean” sculpture, nor to Kapoor’s “Sky Mirror” sculpture in Dallas, except for the fact they’re all reflective silver art objects by the same sculptor. Each is a unique work of public art and asset to its own city.

Whatever they were thinking of Houston’s shiny new art toy, smiling onlookers were snapping selfies like mad around the attraction Sunday, doing their best to record a good picture of themselves and their friends with the tall sculpture. Perhaps in acknowledgment of the difficulty of doing so, a buzzing drone suddenly appeared overhead at one point, then (thankfully) flew off in short order.

Thus, despite the manifestation of ill will by certain outsiders toward Houston’s new public art acquisition and our city, we Houstonians have no reason to harbor any bitterness toward anyone who has been maligning “Cloud Column” from a distance. We suspect it was all good-natured fun, anyway.

Whatever the case, I invite anyone who hasn’t already seen Houston’s unique new sculpture to take this timely opportunity to visit the site and see what has spawned so much controversy and ensuing public curiosity. While all these people are visiting Houston, they may well find our city has such a plethora of charms that they’ll decide to move here.

That would contribute to Houston’s projected population increase to the third largest city in America — and the inevitability it will blow by Chicago for this title. Not that we’re making any comparisons, of course.

Just a note of thanks to those who have helped make all this possible.