Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
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University community should respect display of art
Sometime between Sunday and Monday, a large-scale work of art — part of the traveling exhibition “Material Terrain: A Sculptural Exploration of Landscape and Place,” presented by the UA Museum of Art — was vandalized. Heavily damaged, the piece must be withdrawn from the exhibition and significant, costly repairs will be necessary.
The university is honored to be one of only 10 venues on the national tour of this extraordinary exhibition, which features oversized sculptures by 11 artists on the forefront of contemporary art. The quality of the artists and the ingenuity of their projects immediately drew the museum’s attention. The fact that seven of the sculptures were to be sited on the campus grounds as public art added further to the exhibition’s attraction, for it extends the presentation of art beyond the museum walls and into the heart of the campus community. Over the months of planning that preceded the exhibition’s arrival, the museum anticipated an enthusiastic response to the exhibition. This incident of vandalism is profoundly disappointing and disrespectful to the work in question and to the presence of public art on the UA campus.
Last week, “Garden Snare/Shade House” by Kendall Buster was installed in front of Manzanita Hall. This complex and monumental sculpture, composed of industrial mesh skin sewn over an interlocking and nested steel structure, took a team of eight people two days to install. Once in place, the piece was stunning, unusual, unexpected and attention grabbing.
By Monday morning, vandals had pushed the piece off the grass in front of the dorm and over the retaining wall; it had crashed onto the sidewalk and street below. The structure was severely damaged and the mesh badly torn. It took a team of museum workers a full day to disassemble the sculpture and return it to storage.
I appeal to the campus community to enjoy the exhibition — and to help the museum protect the remaining sculptures. A cash reward is available for accurate information that identifies the vandals. Please report any disrespect of the art to UA Museum of Art (621-7567) or UAPD (621-UAPD).
Thanks to all for helping to protect art on campus.
Dr. Lisa Fischman
Chief curator, UA Museum of Art
Napolitano working to the benefit of Arizonans
Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano once again proved all Arizonans should be proud to have such an effective leader at the helm of this great state of ours. In her State of the State address, the governor laid out her ideas for the coming year; they remind us that partisan politics should not divert attention and time from the issues facing Arizonans, including teacher salary increases, full funding of voluntary full-day kindergarten, tax relief, enforcement of the law at the border and protection from illegal drugs, domestic violence and sex offenders.
Napolitano is also committed to ensuring that students and their families receive the break they deserve when preparing for school.
The governor has proposed a three-day back-to-school sales tax holiday, which would erase sales tax from clothing, school and computing supplies up to $1000. Napolitano has also asked for increases in university and financial aid funding.
Arizona’s progress throughout Napolitano’s first three years in office and the bold ideas she presented to continue to move Arizona forward prove the governor is committed to seeing Arizona safe, strong and prosperous.
David Martinez III
Pre-education junior
UA Young Democrats president
Bush should be ousted for illegal actions
It’s time to impeach Bush for blatant violations of the law.
As Nixon’s former White House Counsel John Dean recently pointed out, Bush is the first American president in history to admit to impeachable offenses. Among others, these include:
- 1. Falsifying intelligence and providing false information to Congress to unjustly and illegally invade Iraq, a sovereign nation.
- 2. Lying about a Niger-Iraq uranium connection in his 2003 State of the Union speech.
- 3. Diverting money appropriated by Congress for Afghanistan to planning the Iraq war.
- 4. Authorizing the use of taxpayer funds to pay for a propaganda campaign in Iraq.
- 5. Authorizing torture and violations of the U.S.-ratified Geneva Convention.
- 6. Imprisoning U.S. citizens without trial or even charges.
- 7. Leaking a covert CIA agent’s identity as retaliation against a political enemy.
- 8. Illegally using taxpayer funds to pay for a domestic political propaganda.
- 9. Illegally spying on Americans within the U.S.
John Pepper
Assistant professor, ecology and
evolutionary biology
Reaction to nude sketches unwarranted, silly
In response to your article “Creator of nude pics nabbed by UA police” (Dec. 6): Harassment of women — and men, for that matter — is a problem. So is the possibly illegal use of a library. But the main point of this story is that someone was tossed for drawing pictures of nude women.
Suppose a registered art student leaves a pad of sketches on a library table. Nude figures of women are included. Should we expel him? What if he just talks about drawing nude women? Just as bad, I’m sure.
A female art student does the same with sketches of nude men. Out with her too? If not, we just have to ban all thought of nude women from art curricula.
But what if someone sits in the library and draws bombs dropping on Baghdad — or Tucson? That’s okay, I presume. It certainly ought to be.
The kicker of the UA incident is one student’s admission: “I didn’t see what he was drawing but definitely saw breasts.” That is so childish as to defy reaction. Maybe she saw a still life drawing of two oranges.
Or maybe they were indeed breasts. So what?
The culture of victimization has gone too far, especially at universities.
That, combined with immense body shame and phobia, suggests bigger problems for the UA than finding an interloper in the library.
Dr. Paul Rapoport
Professor emeritus,
McMaster University
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