At East Carolina University:
The destruction of a sculpture outside ECU’s Jenkins Fine Arts Building over the weekend brought disappointment and disgust.Read all about it:
Someone shattered the recently donated sculpture, Song of the Sirens, in a sculpture garden near Fifth Street over the homecoming weekend. The piece, a conception of the creature in Homer’s The Odyssey, was valued at $12,000.
The sculpture was created by former graduate student Adam Caleb Buth as part of a larger exhibition and was left in the sculpture garden on loan by the artist, ECU sculpture professor Carl Billingsley said.
Buth expressed disappointment but not surprise Tuesday from his Wisconsin home, where he continues his work as an artist.
“I expected this would happen at this university, with all the debauchery and excessive alcohol consumption that goes on there,” Buth said. “It’s not the first time artworks have been destroyed or vandalized at the sculpture garden and on the campus.”
Billingsley also expressed disgust at the destruction of Buth’s work. He said disregard for artworks happens fairly regularly, particularly following homecoming football games. He said another piece was destroyed two years ago on homecoming weekend.
Art destruction stirs ire (Reflector)
A related post
Homeric blindness in “colledge”
[Colledge: “the vast simulacrum of education that amounts to little more than buying a degree on the installment plan.” My coinage. Colledge cheapens the degree of any student who’s really in college.]
comments: 7
If the artist knew this was likely to happen, why did he lend the sculpture? Why is there an unguarded sculpture garden if this happens frequently? Why bother? Seriously, it's not like putting art out continually is going to change the culture.
I wonder if it was a decent sculpture. I'm not keen on contemporary art.
I guess I’d like to think that a college campus is a place where works of art would have a safe home.
Your word is also in the somewhat profane (!) urban dictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=colledge
Our National Gallery has one of the giant spider sculptures called "Maman" ( http://www.gallery.ca/english/548_1039.htm ) and it sits outside. When it was installed, they bolted it to the ground in a big way and waxed the surface. Then my husband (who is the security systems manager) installed a camera that surveys it 24/7. You can see for yourself at: http://www.gallery.ca/english/1946.htm
Enjoy!
I didn’t know that colledge is in the UD. I like my definition better. : )
That’s some spider! I wanted to see someone walking through, or underneath, but no one was daring enough.
Yes, your definition IS better! And more intelligent.
People do walk under the spider all the time - I do. You can see the eggs in her belly better from underneath. (And we saw the Maman at the Louvre too, pretty cool - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeriders/2559187954/in/set-72157605487916459/ ) It was a rainy day when I sent you that link so not many people were strolling. Watch on a sunny sunny day maybe. Not today, however!
Just took a look again and saw someone headed right for the spider. No sign of where he came out though.
A group of kids and grown-ups just walked through. At last!
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