I was talking to a friend in North Carolina about the Bean’s copyright issues when I found out he didn’t even know what the Bean was. I guess not everyone pays attention to us, even if they should, so perhaps it’s excusable. I guess.

Then I found out he didn’t know what the Picasso was.

In my efforts to, um, culturalize him, I came across some nice history and found this factoid:

Picasso refused a fee for his work (experts agreed that the market value of the work was far beyond the funds available) but preferred to give the design and the model as a “gift to the people of Chicago.”

I’m pretty sure I knew this before reading that, but now at least I’ve confirmed it. Of course, I guess Picasso could afford to do that. Still, it puts some things into perspective. I think our current image of Chicago may be distorted, because we forgot we’re actually looking at its reflection in the Bean. I’m sorry, I mean “Cloudgate.” Oh wait, is that word copyrighted?