Issue date: 4/17/08 Section: The Weekly

In 1978, the City Council approved an ordinance that allotted 1.3 percent of the budget for construction on municipal buildings for the creation of public art. The ordinance guarantees money each year to be used for creating public art in and around municipal buildings, including libraries, police stations and fire stations. Some of Chicago's most well-recognized structures, like the sculptures at Millennium Park, are examples of works of public art funded at least in part through this ordinance. And the "cultural renaissance" that inspired an interest in public art in Chicago was sparked by the original sculpture in Daley Plaza, created by Picasso in 1967.

Despite the creation of new works, there is concern over their maintenance and preservation. Per the city's ruling, works with serious damage are to be restored before works that have minor degradation. But often the amount of money needed for artwork that requires immediate maintenance exceeds the amount budgeted for renovations, and many pieces are lost, said Ingebord Kohler, a volunteer with the All of Mankind Coalition. The Coalition has been working for six months to preserve the "All of Mankind" mural, created by William Walker, a Chicago artist credited with making several community murals that encourage and celebrate diversity.

Kohler was first drawn to the mural in November 2007, when she went out for a bike ride through her Near North neighborhood. "The way I like to tell the story," she says, "is that my bike took me to Cabrini-Green." The mural, painted on the side of Northside Stranger's Home Church, 617 W. Evergreen Ave., is found in the middle of the high-rise public housing development formerly notorious for its heavy drug and gang activity. As the city of Chicago started to demolish Cabrini-Green - and the 53 other public high-rise buildings in the city - the "All of Mankind" mural became more visible to neighbors who had previously never dared to enter the public housing project. "A lot of buildings have been demolished," Kohler says. "I was finally able to see what it was about. The closer I got, I was mind-boggled."

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