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# No More Selfies at Chicago's "Bean" Until 2024
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/no-more-selfies-at-chicagos-bean-until-2024/
- Published: 2023-08-18T18:57:59.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:05:09.000Z
- Description: The city began maintenance on the Grainger Plaza that surrounds the iconic sculpture on August 15.
- Author: Elaine Velie
- Tags: News, Anish Kapoor, Chicago, Featured, Public Art, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-large, #Import 2025-11-24 09:29 (2023, 2024, part 1)

Artist Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate" ("The Bean") is a Chicago landmark, but until next spring, tourists to the Windy City won't be able to access the stainless steel selfie magnet. The city began [maintenance](https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp%5Finfo/millennium%5Fpark.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) on the Grainger Plaza that surrounds the iconic sculpture on August 15 and will wrap up the project in 2024.

"Cloud Gate" was installed in Chicago's Millenium Park in [2004](https://www.chicagotribune.com/175/ct-chicago-history-timeline-20220626-r6jgr254ava6hmsuglhqal67vy-list.html?ref=hyperallergic.com). It attracts [millions](https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/mayor/press%5Froom/press%5Freleases/2017/april/Millennium%5FPark%5FTourism.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) of visitors a year, many of whom cozy up to the 33-foot-high work to pose in front of it or snap selfies in its reflective surface.

In 2017, "The Bean" became the centerpiece of a host of Facebook [memes](https://hyperallergic.com/408396/anish-kapoor-bean-windex-facebook-meme/) that showed it being Windexed, dressed up for a job interview, and transformed into the whale from the gut-wrenching 1993 children's movie *Free Willy,* solidifying the sculpture's place in American popular culture. "The Bean" has seen its fair share of [controversies](https://hyperallergic.com/229974/chicago-mayor-flattered-kapoor-even-madder-as-cloud-gate-gate-continues/), too. In 2015, China installed an exact replica in the city of Karamay. Kapoor was [not happy](https://hyperallergic.com/229974/chicago-mayor-flattered-kapoor-even-madder-as-cloud-gate-gate-continues/). Three years later, the artist [sued](https://hyperallergic.com/448002/anish-kapoor-sues-nra-the-bean-cloud-gate/) the National Rifle Association for showing his work in a recruitment video.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2023/08/image-2.png)

"Windex the Bean" ([via Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/events/1152481434854797/), screenshot *Hyperallergic*)

While Chicago visitors won't be able to see the original "Cloud Gate" until next year, eager viewers can see a [smaller version](https://hyperallergic.com/what-do-new-yorkers-think-of-anish-kapoor-mini-bean/) in New York City. The "Mini-Bean" is squashed underneath what New Yorkers have dubbed the "Jenga Tower" at 56 Leonard Street in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood.