Environment and Sculpture

It is hard to miss the monumental building construction infringing on Memorial Hall's quadrangle, yet Harvard's new sculptural acquisitions are almost invisible in snow-covered Radcliffe's courtyards and Sever squad. It is not only the snow that makes these sculptures so hard to see--they are scarce and often dwarfed between heedless architectural structures, the sculptor's concern for the environment is offended, if even recognized.

But is the solution of this environmental problem to build monuments to bastardized styles such as the new Science Center, an overstated Carpenter Center, or Gund Hall, that is reminiscent of pyramids and athletic stadiums yet hardly conscious of her neighbors--Mem, William James, Busch, or Burr?

These juxtapositions of buildings impose new environments. And though their architects might call them sculpture in their own right, they ought not preclude other artistic expressions. Sculpture, too, can create new environments. Its strength in recent developments in the arts lies in eloquent parodies of man's gauche functional or artistic creations, like the Pop Artist's monuments--giant icebags, billboards, or lipsticks--and in its resourcefulness at employing wind, water, touch or the surrounding environmental space in order to produce new atmospheres of sculptural dimensions.

The Fogg under new director Daniel Robbins is at present making efforts to get more sculpture. Due to the work of Robbins, Radcliffe was recently given a sculpture of Beverly Pepper, an American artist now residing in Rome. Currier House received this donation during Christmas vacation when it was installed in the courtyard opposite a more classical sculpture of a female nude by Zorach. So far it has caused no great response, generally misinterpreted as mere support for the building or a rusty sheet of metal.

"I think it's great; people look at it and wonder if the building is falling apart," said Paul Levine, Master of Currier House. "The reason for choosing this particular spot was to see how long it took before people realized it was permanent, a piece of sculpture not a piece of the building." The work, entitled "Mt. Vernon Wall Piece" stands about nine feet tall, folds around a corner of the brick wall, and is of cor-ten rusted steel. "A lot think it is holding up the building, although some recognize immediately that it is some kind of sculpture, as something not done randomly. Others ask if it was especially made for that corner."

It was made for a corner, although any corner, not specifically the one at Currier House. It might resemble a drain pipe or even a forgotten sheet of metal, but it also succeeds in revealing a lot about its environment. Putting it across from the nude sculpture at first seems quite innocent, but contrasts the female representation quite drastically.

And to the complaint that the Zorach nude is sexist. Levine responded. "This supplicant woman is not exactly the thing to have at Radcliffe," but the Pepper sculpture can hardly be accused of prejudiced representation of the feminine form. And the fact that it almost blends with the wall forces one to look at other corners of the building (forces one to engage oneself in the environment) to see whether the piece is unique, and it adds a pleasant lilt to the bottom of the corner as the steel broadens and folds outward from the wall.

Buildings like Currier House need to be reexamined. Pepper's own words about her sculpture in Boston's City Hall Plaza emphasize this point. "The work should be in dialogue with the people around it. I believe this is a prime function of art in a world increasingly hostile to human life. With the pollution of the environment, the atomizing of the human spirit, it is increasingly necessary that modern art, especially public art, have some relationship with people--that is with the world of common experience."

There must be some sculpture at Harvard before people can relate to it. A lone sculpture, a figure by Henry Moore, stands in front of Lehman Hall: the trees surrounding it are so overbearing it is hardly visible. Something like Claes Oldenberg's giant lipstick might have been more effective. The yard boasts little else sculpturally beyond John Harvard and Widener's lions: only recently did a Visual Studies course put up a kinetic soul sculpture in Sever quad. The bright red and immense size of the tripod-like pieces certainly don't go unmissed, and show what a vast and changeable space the quad can be.