As a Wildcat, I can confirm that there is a sculpture that does resemble a giant spork in front of King Hall (next to Chem/Biochem). It is supposed to be a cat’s paw…but it looks like a spork.
Scott Reed
There is a spork in front of King hall on campus at Kansas State University, kind of…… It is one of those things that as a freshman you always wonder what exactly it is supposed to be. It is about 25 feet tall, white, cylindrical at the base, tapering toward the top where it flattens out and has 3 groves cut in it down from the top. (fork or sporkish) I was always told that it is supposed to represent a head of wheat, kind of weak resemblance in my book. Looks more like a spork to me. Now I could tell you about the time that some pranksters made two large snowballs and rolled them up against the base of the this sculpture, but that is a different story.
Here is a third theory regarding the KSU spork. During my time in the Little Apple, I was led to believe that the sculpture in question was commissioned by the Psychology department back in the early 1970s when such things were fashionable (it looks like something from one of those “mod” concert flyers). As such, it is supposed to be a (very malformed) reproduction of the Greek letter psi, often used as an emblem of sorts for the psychological and psychiatric professions. You can just about convince yourself of this if you imagine a capital psi pumping up at the gym and then growing 25 feet tall below the “bowl” of the psi.
The mailbag item, “Why is it so hard to get a good spork? (28-Feb-2000)” says
Looks like Kendric has given us the answer! It’s a greek psi, for psychology/psychiatry.
Does that mean it’s really a psork?
It is too clear, and so it is hard to see.
[hijack] There’s a giant clothes pin in front of the PNC Bank building in Center City Philly. [/hijack]
Come on, Chief, if you are going to hijack this thread about art in Philly, do a real hijack job.
[hijack]Take this thread to West Philadelphia.
More specifically, the campus of the University of Pennsylvania (my alma mater).
The clothespin in Center City Philadelphia is by Claes Oldenburg. Oldenburg also did a sculpture in front of Penn’s main library called Split Button. That’s a great bit of sculputre with plenty of kids climbing on it and sliding down it by day and drunk students doing the same by night.
More interesting is the statue Solomon, which was always referred to Gumby, for what will be obvious reasons if you click the link.
Perhaps the most intriguing sculpture on Penn’s campus is a giant work spanning a major campus walkway. It’s official title is Covenant, but it is universally known around around campus as dueling tampons.
[/hijack]