Concrete Traffic

Wolf Vostell (1932–1998)

Concrete Traffic<br /> Wolf Vostell (1932-1998)

Created 1970
Originally installed 1970
Reinstalled 2016

Concrete, 1957 Cadillac Series 62 Sedan de Ville
Width: 89.5 in (173.99 cm)
Length: 231 in (25.4 cm)
Weight: 16.2 tons

Located at Campus North Parking Garage
5525 S Ellis Ave

Commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Conceived by Fluxus artist Wolf Vostell (1932–1998) as an “instant happening” and an “event sculpture,” Concrete Traffic was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA). On the morning of January 16, 1970, in a busy Chicago commuter parking lot, Chicago artisans brought Vostell’s vision to life, pouring concrete over a 1957 Cadillac deVille to create the monumental concrete sculpture. Concrete Traffic spent several months in the lot until the artist and the MCA gifted the sculpture to the University of Chicago, where it was sited in an outdoor lot at 60th Street and South Ingleside Avenue—the current site of the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.

Concrete Traffic spent nearly 40 years exposed to the elements, until a major four-year conservation effort was undertaken between June 2012 and September 2016, complemented by material investigation and a series of workshops. For more information about these efforts, visit the Neubauer Collegium’s Material Matters project page.

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As this work came to a close, a partnership of UChicago arts organizations envisioned Concrete Happenings, a comprehensive suite of exhibitions and interactive public programs that ran from September 2016 to June 2017. Concrete Happenings included performances, screenings, talks, art workshops, and happenings that offered unique opportunities to engage with a crucial art historical moment and movement, and to explore the intensities with which an artwork can form and transform its publics. Concrete Happenings built on the legacy of the University of Chicago’s challenging public art by inviting artists, communities, scholars, and art-lovers to confront the strange power of a massive and complex sculpture within an environment that continuously marks both its belonging and its uncanny otherness.

After a public procession through the city of Chicago, Concrete Traffic was installed in the Campus North Parking Garage, where the final phase of its conservation took place in the public eye. Its new permanent siting and public conservation offer concrete examples of how public art can transform the everyday, activate public urban spaces, and drive new dialogues through encountering the unexpected.

Read some of the press coverage of Concrete Happenings.

Artist profile

Wolf Vostell

(German, 1932–1998)

Wolf Vostell

Biography

Wolf Vostell (1932–1998) was a German Fluxus artist whose famous work, Concrete Traffic, is the subject of a year-long series of exhibitions, events, and other programming.

To learn more, visit Concrete Happenings.

Related Links

Concrete Happenings

Material Matters at the Neubauer Collegium

Works by Wolf Vostell in the Smart Museum of Art’s collection

Video

Conserving Concrete Traffic

Concrete Traffic Procession to the University of Chicago
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