Playboy Rabbit Head Coming Down from Fuzzy Gerdes on Vimeo.
I know from emails and texts I've received over the last few weeks that it's not big news to most of you that the Chicago office of Playboy Enterprises will be closing on April 30, 2012. And yes, to answer the question a lot of you have been asking in those messages, it will definitely affect my job in some way. But that's not what I'm writing about today.
One of the great things about working at Playboy over the years has been the great art collection that the magazine had amassed over the years, and the excellent work of the curatorial staff in displaying and educating about that art in the office. For example, there were several Ed Paschke pieces within a stone's throw of my office, and that was pretty damn cool.
There's a bronze Rabbit Head sculpture by Richard Hunt that has hung in the lobby of the 680 North Lake Shore office since this office was opened in 1990. On January 30 and February 2, 2012, the sculpture was taken down. I snapped a few photos throughout those days, just in the course of going back and forth across the office. I happened to swing by the lobby right as the bunny actually descended and got this video.
It's so interesting how scoring can really make a film. Without any sound, even sped-up this video is rather boring. I thought about putting Yakety Sax or some sort of ragtime under it to give it that comedy flare, but then I found this delightfully somber piece by Kevin MacLeod that sets an appropriate melancholy tone, I think.
