You must check out Cloud Gate, or what we Chicago locals call “the Bean”. One of Chicago’s leading free attractions, “The Bean” or “Cloud Gate” is British artist Anish Kapoor’s first public outdoor work installed in the United States. The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of perfectly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city’s famous skyline and the clouds above. Visitors and citizens alike are marvelling at the beauty reflected off the Bean and the near perfection of the work and it remains one of the leading things to do in Chicago. A 12-foot-high arch provides a “gate” to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives. Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture is among the largest of its kind in the world, measuring 66-feet long by 33-feet high.Read more at Free Things to Do in Chicago: http://chicagofree.info/2010/01/21/fun-things-to-do-in-downtown-chicago/#ixzz1ww1XL2sg
Make sure to check out the new video and sound 
installation in February 2012 by Chicago artists Luftwerk. Entitled “Luminous Field,” the installation, created specifically for Millennium Park, which will bathe the Cloud Gate sculpture and the surrounding plaza in images and sounds set to music. Family activities, hands-on art projects, musical games and dance performances will be held in a heated tent on the Park’s Chase Promenade North on weekends.
6 to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays
6 to 9 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays,
February. 10-21, 2012
Michigan Avenue and Washington Street
Chicago. Free Admission. (312) 742-1168
