Next step for county courthouse project: Waiting for funding
URBANA – Urbana and Champaign County are embarking on a public art program together, taking baby steps.
In this case it's not the controversial Giant Lincoln Head proposed by a distinguished local artist, Frank Gallo, but something more modest and functional.
In August 2007, French artist Frederic Beaugeard, who lives in Urbana, won a competition for a "Downtown Newspaper Rack Project, which entails designing a newspaper rack structure to be located in front of the Champaign County Courthouse on Main Street in downtown Urbana," as the city described it.
Beaugeard, 40, was educated at Paris' top art school and has exhibited in France, Egypt, South Korea, Slovakia, Sweden and Kuwait. His design, called "Urbanastand," incorporates both functional news racks and an etched-glass background featuring famous news stories from The News-Gazette and the Urbana Courier, which printed its last edition in 1979.
The city's Web site notes "This project is still in the design stage. Look for the installation of this multifunctional piece in the fall of 2008."
As the fall days tick away, though, nothing has gone further than paper on the project. It could take a couple of years, or more, for "Urbana-stand" to be constructed just west of the courthouse entrance, says Anna Hochhalter, Urbana's public arts coordinator.
News-Gazette Archive
The full story is available in our paid story archive.
