The new Baker Center has an escalator. It has shiny hallways, a working, clean food court, accessible conference rooms, a spirit shop and a room for nearly every student organization. It was built to attract people and, judging from the crowd around lunchtime, it's working.
But in an area specifically designed to be the center of foot traffic at Ohio University, the placement of the questionable mosaic Blackberry Patch raises questions.
The artwork depicts several scenes and caricatures of blacks in a style that hardly matches the rest of the building. Blackberry Patch shows black people carting what seems to be berries they have picked. An alternate piece holds the caption Chicken Foot Woman
featuring a large black woman in a dew rag holding a bag of chickens. Another piece is captioned Crow Man with a huge distorted black man has a pouch with crows in it.
Aesthetically, it's little more than an eyesore.
Its artistic merit aside, its intentions remain unclear. It is hardly representative of the Ohio University population or even the black community in Athens.
Ohio's enforcement of the percent for the arts usually forces construction projects to include unnecessary decorations that neither flow with the construction nor make any worthwhile artistic contribution. Remember punch card park?
Ohio University had a chance to do something memorable and lasting ' especially since the work is laid into the floor ' but instead chose to commission something that has been called offensive and demeaning by a letter writer.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post's executive editors. 17
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