# Damn you, University! (sculpture rant) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 2, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403 "2010-01-02T16:10:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/61 "2010-01-04T03:50:00Z")
That’s _terrible_. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/62 "2010-01-04T04:17:59Z")
The first phrase that came to mind when I clicked on the picture was “Dr. Seuss”. It looks like a more detailed flower from[The Lorax](http://www.jmt.org/assets/john%20muir%20award/lorax%20cover.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/63 "2010-01-04T04:54:38Z")
“A Startling Whirlwind of Opportunity"… and it’s got a fan in it. Right. Still, could be worse. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/64 "2010-01-04T05:34:23Z")
I like everything on this that isn’t yellow, and I’d like the yellow parts if they weren’t so plasticized looking. I like colored metal but I like it when it looks metallic. But I’ve definitely seen worse pieces of public sculpture art. ---
**Author:** ![slowpony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@slowpony](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slowpony)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/65 "2010-01-04T06:30:28Z")
Peeee-uwwwwee! That is a NASTY pile of shit. Unfortunately whoever decided that that thing is art also supplies my place of employment with “art”. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/66 "2010-01-04T06:42:33Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > For an example of damn good, modern public sculpture, I submit Roger Berry’s “[Perspectives](http://rogerberry.info/images/Cupertino/Perspectives/01-PERSPECTIVES_sq.jpg)” on the corner of DeAnza Blvd. and Stevens Creek in Cupertino, CA. It’s elegantly simple, and [changes](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_LAvg0HXTfcA/SF77Ne4tkhI/AAAAAAAAAyQ/dsG4xBqwGuU/s400/img_1787.jpg) [shape](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LAvg0HXTfcA/SF7we7SmFRI/AAAAAAAAAyA/fwM_XCjYE3o/s400/img_4074.jpg) as you drive by. (or walk around it [up close](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/50/377684448_5a9c7a615e_o.jpg), if you have that sort of free time). I know what I hate, and I don’t hate that. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/67 "2010-01-04T06:43:47Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Found a pic of the UF french fries. > > [Getting Closer to the French Fries! | This is the Marsden Sc… | Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/luv2run/2348796708/in/set-72157601220557494/) > > safe for work, unless you stop to think about how much they probably paid for it. Those are obviously from the McDonald’s “small” - that’s about how many fries the small pack holds. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/68 "2010-01-04T14:52:45Z")
> [@Lucky\_13](#): > > It looks like it should be in Downtown Disney. Maybe not so much if the sunflower thingy was removed. There’s a thing in the Magic Kingdom which looks pretty much identical. I think it’s part of a ride in Tomorrowland. If it’s a whirlwind, shouldn’t it… erm… taper towards the bottom, instead of the top? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/69 "2010-01-04T15:03:02Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Found a pic of the UF french fries. > > [Getting Closer to the French Fries! | This is the Marsden Sc… | Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/luv2run/2348796708/in/set-72157601220557494/) > > safe for work, unless you stop to think about how much they probably paid for it. It cost $105,000 back in 1988 or so. The funding came directly from the state legislature as part of the Art in State Buildings program, so it didn’t cost the university anything. The same program also gave us other brilliant pieces like [“Bunch of Fucking Random Circles And Triangles”](http://www.florida-arts.org/programs/statebuildings/peters.htm) in the FSU student gym; [“Tellytubby Land Next Three Exits”](http://www.florida-arts.org/programs/statebuildings/watkins.htm) by the Florida Turnpike; and [“Warning: Not Actual Slide, Which Would Be Way More Fun”](http://www.florida-arts.org/programs/statebuildings/hron.htm) at some health department building in Jacksonville. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/70 "2010-01-04T15:16:35Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > It cost $105,000 back in 1988 or so. The funding came directly from the state legislature as part of the Art in State Buildings program, so it didn’t cost the university anything. > > . So, somebody else got shafted for the cost? I wonder how much of that cost was for materials and manual labor and paint and how much was for “artist conception”? If “artist conception” cost are a pretty low percentage of that, my crapart rage meter would be pretty low, if they are a big part, then it starts to peg. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/71 "2010-01-04T15:42:15Z")
I expect most of it was for materials and labor. AFAICT the artists patronized by the State of Florida are generally unknowns. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/72 "2010-01-04T15:45:43Z")
No-one does worse public art than my home city - ladies and gentlemen. I submit the Airman’s Memorial (a/k/a “Gumby Goes to Heaven”) [![Imgur](https://live.staticflickr.com/43/83378747_185934a6d1_z.jpg) ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/loneprimate/83378747/) ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/73 "2010-01-04T15:52:59Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > IMO, it looks a bit silly. And a bit disjointed, as if the sculptor had 2 projects in mind and then just mashed them together. The yellow “sunflower” is by far the worst bit of it. > > Give me a dead president or general on horseback any day. Gaze upon David Adickes’ dead & living presidents & you might change your mind. These monstrosities are being spawned near my neighborhood but are destined for display in [South Dakota’s Black Hills](http://presidentspark.com/ObamaTour2009). [This site](http://houstonist.com/2006/10/11/meet_the_beatle.php) has links to more works by this artiste whose career has tempted many a Houstonian to attack their eyeballs with a spork… The piece in the OP? Not great, but I’ve seen worse. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/74 "2010-01-04T15:53:58Z")
I need to go take a picture of the fallen police and fireman memorial in front of Calgary’s City Hall - it’s actually quite nice, except for the huge plastic 70’s looking yellow thing they put on the top of it. Nice symbolism, too, for a hero’s memorial - a big yellow thing. You’d almost think artists would get stuff like symbolism. ---
**Author:** ![Ichini\_Sanshigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d9b06d/32.png) [@Ichini\_Sanshigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichini_Sanshigo)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/75 "2010-01-04T16:17:33Z")
I kinda like it. I think it would look better upside down and without the yellow parts. Like, if it was just a whirlwind (a right-side-up whirlwind), that would be pretty neat. I don’t know how the support for that would work, but if the artist could pull it off it would be keen-o. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/76 "2010-01-04T17:10:05Z")
> [@ivn1188](#): > > Your premises don’t connect up in any meaningful way, and each one of them is completely wrong. Since I have not, in this thread, said any of my premises about art, and you are an ignorant newcomer who enjoys talking about matters far above his level of intellect, I don’t think you have any claim to know or argue with a retarded dachsund, much less me. I have actually put down my principles about art… in Cafe Society, and a very long time ago. perhaps I will one day again when I feel like chatting with an equal, and not you. And that is about all the time I will waste on you. Really, does he always make it this easy to dismiss him? ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/77 "2010-01-04T17:14:22Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > It does strike me as kind of weird that the OP seems to think that it’s the art department’s job to be aware of and “understand” all public artworks on campus, and that if nobody in the art department is familiar with or interested in some particular installation, it must therefore be crap art. It does mean that either the art department isn’t helping much, or they’re simply not being involved. I don’t know which one would be a worse judgement of the system. Suffice it to say that they’ve offered not the slightest shred of a defense of any of these things, and apparently can’t be bothered or specifically want to avoid noticing the large, major plastic art\* pieces which are sitting a stones’ throw away from their windows. \*As in “The Plastic Arts”: solid things, like sculpture. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/78 "2010-01-04T19:22:16Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > For an example of damn good, modern public sculpture, I submit Roger Berry’s “[Perspectives](http://rogerberry.info/images/Cupertino/Perspectives/01-PERSPECTIVES_sq.jpg)” on the corner of DeAnza Blvd. and Stevens Creek in Cupertino, CA. It’s elegantly simple, and [changes](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_LAvg0HXTfcA/SF77Ne4tkhI/AAAAAAAAAyQ/dsG4xBqwGuU/s400/img_1787.jpg) [shape](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LAvg0HXTfcA/SF7we7SmFRI/AAAAAAAAAyA/fwM_XCjYE3o/s400/img_4074.jpg) as you drive by. (or walk around it [up close](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/50/377684448_5a9c7a615e_o.jpg), if you have that sort of free time). OK, this is JMHO, but I have way more respect for the whirlwind monstrosity in the OP than I do for this thing. This is neat, sure. Nifty, even. But it’s nothing. It’s a dude dicking around at the office, twisting a pipe-cleaner into a rough circle, bending it here, bending it there, and then noticing WHOA! It’s kind of a rectangle from this perspective! It’s an exercise. It’s a big optical illusion. It’s nothing more than a phenomenon. He doesn’t do anything with it, except make it big. Now I’m sure the art journals describe it as a “triumph of post-modernism, valid from all perspectives, and equally supportive of the blah blah modalities yadda yadda paradigms this and that, and what’s more, the shiny stuff it’s made of invites the solipsistic contemplation of self, while pointedly commenting on the empty reality of the experience of modern society.” Ugh. It’s just sterile and uninviting. At least the whirlwind, though it’s as ugly as a bag of assholes, represents something. It’s an idea. A weird Tasmanian-devil-meets-Dr.-Seuss hodgepodge, sure, but it tries something interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/79 "2010-01-04T20:39:25Z")
Can I interject about a piece of public art that I actually like? I was shocked to stumble across this recently-installed public art in the new Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston. [Botanica by George Sherwood](http://www.georgesherwood.com/2009/09/06/300/). You can see a video if it in motion here: [http://www.georgesherwood.com/videos/](http://www.georgesherwood.com/videos/) - it’s the one with the building tower in the background (I think that’s State Street Bank). ---
**Author:** ![ivn1188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e480ec/32.png) [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403/80 "2010-01-04T21:27:15Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Since I have not, in this thread, said any of my premises about art, and you are an ignorant newcomer who enjoys talking about matters far above his level of intellect, I don’t think you have any claim to know or argue with a retarded dachsund, much less me. I beg to differ: > [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > I, of course, never accepted the bullshit relativism of denying there is bad or good art. If there is art, then it can be bad; to deny value is deny art itself, and render the entire concept meaningless. Do that, and there would be no reason to create art (and doing so would be impossible). It must be tough going through life with your handicaps. You have my sympathy. You’d have more if you didn’t make such an effort to show off those handicaps, though. ETA: Just for the record, posting a _lot_ of ignorant shit over a long time doesn’t actually give you more credibility. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-university-sculpture-rant/523403.md?page=5)