2008 Woodie Awards
Public art incites public opinion
Andrew Ngeow
Issue date: 11/1/07 Section: Arts
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Smog, LOVE, Frisbee Dog. The names and forms are familiar - sculptures that puncuate our campus and enter our everyday space. The approximately 15 sculptures placed around the buildings and dips of Middlebury's landscape live with us - we pass them on almost any walk across campus, they enter our vision and they become familiar. Public sculpture, more than art hanging on the white walls of a gallery, becomes part of our everday lives, whether we like it or not. It is only natural, then, that many of the College's public works have created controversy over the years. From appreciation to dislike to awe, countless opinions circulate concerning Tony Smith's Smog, Robert Indiana's LOVE, Patrick Villiers Farrow's Frisbee Dog and Middlebury's other public works. While controversy may be counter-productive in some contexts, on the College's campus it seems to instead become the food for progressive intellectual debate. Though controversary surrounding art did spiral out of control in 1983 when a sculpture by the renowned sculptor Vito Acconci was torched, students have since expressed their views in a more acceptable and productive forum. Deborah Fisher's recently installed Solid State Change carries on the this tradition of productive debate on the role of public art on the College's campus.
Since Brooklyn-based artist Deborah Fisher's 6,000 pound sculpture Solid State Change was installed behind Hillcrest Environmental center in late summer, it has created a buzz on campus. Is this art? What does it mean? Why tires? Does art have to beautiful, or is it simply there to create discussion and to activate thought? The list of questions goes on and the debate continues. Fisher came to the College on Oct. 25 to discuss her work in a lecture in Hillcrest. There, she spoke about her oeuvre and her inspirations - cultural and environmental - behind the piece. While she stated that she was not here at the College to convince people to like the work or to find it beautiful, she was here to reveal her thoughts about what the sculpture means in relation to the world at large and, more specifically, to the College. Fisher does not consider herself a political artist, but she is an artist who deals in the fundamentals of reality in hopes to create discussion and change. Solid State Change aims to do just that - create discussion about the work and what in means in the larger context of the world.
Since Brooklyn-based artist Deborah Fisher's 6,000 pound sculpture Solid State Change was installed behind Hillcrest Environmental center in late summer, it has created a buzz on campus. Is this art? What does it mean? Why tires? Does art have to beautiful, or is it simply there to create discussion and to activate thought? The list of questions goes on and the debate continues. Fisher came to the College on Oct. 25 to discuss her work in a lecture in Hillcrest. There, she spoke about her oeuvre and her inspirations - cultural and environmental - behind the piece. While she stated that she was not here at the College to convince people to like the work or to find it beautiful, she was here to reveal her thoughts about what the sculpture means in relation to the world at large and, more specifically, to the College. Fisher does not consider herself a political artist, but she is an artist who deals in the fundamentals of reality in hopes to create discussion and change. Solid State Change aims to do just that - create discussion about the work and what in means in the larger context of the world.
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