Ohio University students and faculty pass them everyday on the way to class. Located indoors or outdoors, some sculptures are highly visible and others elude the preoccupied eye, but they share one grievance: While they are intended to be thought-provoking and inspirational, some are allowed to fade into the scenery.
Freshman Kaleigh Bantum attends class in Gordy Hall four days a week and sometimes watches the bold red statements stream across the LED monitor mounted in the lobby as she passes the time before class.
She said she had no idea that the display was a piece of art.
The exhibit, which is actually installation art created by Ohio University alumna and rising art force Jenny Holzer, was installed in 1998 and challenges the viewer with a diverse series of truisms written in an array of languages.
The truisms are something that seems like common sense but spun in a new way
said Fred Toner, chair of the modern languages department. Holzer wanted to use things that would make people think about common assumptions differently; many of her truisms are very provocative, he said.
One of her truisms confronts viewers in Gordy with the question: Is freedom constructive or destructive?
The location of the installation in the foreign language building is very appropriate; Holzer seems to be subtly implying the importance of foreign languages, Toner said.
There seems to be one theme and that is the power of language Toner said. It is an art that demands a reaction. I like that.
Another significant sculpture, David Hostetler's Standing Woman modestly poses in the Wolfe Garden in front of the fourth floor entrance to Alden Library.
Partially veiled by vegetation, the bronze Standing Woman can go unnoticed, but in 1989 this piece was the first sculpture addition to the campus since 1865, said Hostetler, a former OU sculpture professor.
Hostetler was an instructor at the university in the late 1940s, while working on his master's degree, and frequently came under the stern eye of Earl Seigfred, the first dean of the College of Fine Arts. Seigfred insisted that Hostetler adopt a more formal and professorial attitude, Hostetler said.
In an effort to find calm before meeting the reprimands of Seigfred, Hostetler retreated to the Wolfe Garden, where his work ironically was placed more than 40 years later, he said.
I love that it's there
because it really means much to me from my youthful past
The slender form of another of Hostetler's female forms is located inside the library on the fourth floor in the leisure reading section. The wooden carving, part of his American Woman series, is the likeness of his wife of 21 years, Susan Crehan-Hostetler. Hostetler used a tree that was cut from his own property and planted the year his wife was born, he said.
Hostetler draws all of his inspiration from women, the sole subjects of his work.
[Women] are it as far as I'm concerned
Hostetler said.
One of Hostetler's former sculpture students, Michael McConnell, created the abstract sculpture, Albatross
which is located outside of the Park Place entrance to the library.
According to a May 29, 1969, news release obtained from the archives department at Alden Library, the sculpture is a welded conglomeration of cor-ten steel on the exterior and steel angle iron on the interior.
Cor-ten is a protective steel that naturally rusts and then assumes the color and form that it will retain over time, Hostetler said.
In the beginning of its history, Albatross was concealed by trees in front of the library, said Gary Ginther, fine arts librarian at Alden.
It's getting a second life now that is it visible again
Ginther said.
Due to the abstract nature of the sculpture, many people are not interested in taking the time to understand and appreciate it, Hostetler said.
The fact that Albatross is not easily recognized perturbs some people, Ginther said. But art should generate discussion and force people to think about it.
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