Love or Hate Them, These Cows Are Big in Chicago

It’s pretty much your standard herd of fiberglass cows.

You have your F-22 swept-wing attack cow, on patrol near the city’s Hancock Tower. You have your brazen hussy cow, flouncing through the Magnificent Mile shopping district in a hide-tight pink skirt. And, of course, you have your basic-model brown cow with a bunch of big ol’ holes through it.

“That one has a bunch of . . . ahhh! I get it! Holes! Holy cow! Get it?”

Turning the city into a candy-colored bovine petting zoo, the 300 cows painted and sculpted by local artists are kitschy, craftsy and, at times, blatantly commercial. They are a shrill summertime call to tourists. And the critics hate the whole lot.

But they have this city--burned nearly to the ground, legend has it, when Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over the lantern--entirely enchanted.

Commuters discuss the technical mysteries of the solar-powered glow cow over the din of the el. High school girls from the suburbs check their hair in the head-high rump of the mirror cow, thanking her with a peck on the snout. The entire flow of downtown foot traffic has been altered as pedestrians try to stay out of the way of picture-takers.

“It’s just a weird phenomenon,” said Chicago’s director of public art, Michael Lash. “Everybody loves these cows. They have turned Chicago into--I hate to say it--a cow town, where people talk to each other, smile at each other. You see strangers . . . standing next to each other, all discussing the aesthetics of a fiberglass cow. It’s unique in its wackiness.”

Both the idea for the display--dubbed “Cows on Parade”--and the raw cows themselves were imported from Zurich, Switzerland, which staged a similar display last summer. A vacationing Chicago businessman saw the Swiss cows and pitched the idea to city officials here as a summertime tourist attraction and municipal nod to public art.

When Mayor Richard M. Daley gave his blessing, the city put in its order to the tiny Swiss factory: 180 standing cows, 90 grazing cows and 30 reclining cows.

Hundreds of local artists, eager for grants of $1,000, submitted designs, the only requirements being that the cows had to hold up under months of summer sun and a few million pets, whacks and smooches, and that they contain no religious, obscene, political or commercial messages.

Local businesses paid $3,000, $5,000 or $10,000 for one of the designs submitted to the city, or $2,000 for a plain cow to be dressed up by an artist or designer of their choice.

All the designs submitted to the city were screened for content. Some of those commissioned privately have led to cries of commercialism--and not without reason.

The cow out in front of a restaurant called Eli’s, the Place for Steak--which is famous for its cheesecake--is the beast of burden for a massive cheesecake. One in front of the Marshall Fields department store is loaded with gift-wrapped boxes. The Harry Caray Restaurant commissioned “Holy Cow!” which also happens to be the favorite celebratory call of the late Chicago Cubs announcer. The cow stands in front of WGN studios, which broadcasts Cubs games. And WGN is owned by the Tribune Co., which also owns the Cubs.

“This isn’t art, it’s just commerce,” said Neal Pollack, a writer and critic with the alternative weekly newspaper the Chicago Reader. “They are mass-produced, mass-marketed and purchased by large corporations. The cows are a perfect metaphor for what Chicago has become, which is to say the quintessential Midwest tourist booster town.”

Pollack is by no means alone in his assessment. And while most of the artists took home just $1,000 for what sometimes amounted to hundreds of hours of work, businesses are reaping real financial benefits.

Throughout downtown, shopkeepers are crediting higher-than-expected sales of virtually everything to the cows. Hotels are selling out of special discounted “Cow Packages” that include milk and cookies. And photo shops are enjoying an absolute windfall, as sales of disposable cameras have shot up an estimated 40% over last summer.

By the time the cows are rounded up and auctioned off for charity at the end of October, the city figures they’ll have brought in $100 million. As for uncritical boosterism, the Chicago Sun-Times runs a story and picture every day under the happy headline, “My Favorite Cow.”

So all the criticisms are true. The problem for the critics is, everyone knows that; they just don’t care.

“When I heard about it, I couldn’t stop laughing,” said Arthur Myer, designer of the mysteriously eerie glow cow.

“I thought they were kidding,” he said. “It was ridiculous. But they put a smile on a lot of people’s faces, and the kids love them, so I can’t see anything wrong with it.”