Chicago To Get Yoko Ono’s 1st US Permanent Art Installation

Yoko Ono’s first permanent public art installation in the United States will be in Chicago, the artist announced Friday alongside Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The two held a news conference in Jackson Park on the city’s South Side, where the installation “SKY LANDING” will open in June 2016.

The idea for the work came when Ono, who is John Lennon’s widow, visited the park in 2013 for a cherry blossom tree installation.

Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Yoko Ono talks with Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago.

“I recall being immediately connected to the powerful site and feeling the tension between the sky and the ground,” Ono said in a statement. “I wanted the Sky to land here, to cool it, and make it well again.”

The installation by Ono, 82, is supported by the city, the Chicago Park District, the public-private partnership Project 120 Chicago and The Garden of the Phoenix Foundation. Emanuel also announced a new campaign for public art projects across Chicago.

Jackson Park was the site of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and is one of two sites under consideration to be home to Barack Obama’s presidential library.

Ono’s other public art works include the Imagine Peace Tower in Reykjavik, Iceland, a tower of light beams that is a tribute to Lennon.