Paper: Charlotte Observer, The (NC)

Title: ABSTRACT ART, CONCRETE THOUGHT - DAVIDSON HOPES DISCUSSIONS GROW FROM SCULPTURE GARDEN

Author: RICHARD MASCHAL, RMASCHAL@CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.COM

Date: August 27, 2007

Section: METRO Page: 1B

A conversation is taking place in front of the Davidson College library. It's not very loud, so it won't disturb students beginning classes today. But if a passerby tunes in, there's a lot to learn.Three pieces of sculpture fill a new sculpture garden on a grassy oval between E.H. Little Library and the Chambers Building. Nestled beneath the trees, the works by well-known artists "talk" to each other: "Homage to Rodin" by William Tucker; "You" by Antony Gormley and "Untitled" by Joel Shapiro. Two artists are British: Tucker and Gormley. Shapiro is American. Two works are abstract and one figurative. All three relate to art made thousands of years ago by the ancient Greeks. Brad Thomas, the Davidson College gallery director who helped choose the work, imagines students reading about art in the library coming upon the sculpture. "They can walk out the door and see the real example, interact with the real works of art - visceral, three-dimension and monumental," he said. The sculpture garden, which will be dedicated at a public celebration Sept. 12, is available also to visiting art lovers. Katherine Belk-Cook, a Davidson supporter and art patron, sparked the project two and a half years ago when she told then-college President Bobby Vagt the campus could use more sculpture. Vagt asked members of the art department for a plan. A work Davidson already owned drove their discussions. In 1993, the Pepper family gave the college Auguste Rodin's "Jean d'Aire," a monumental nude figure from the great French sculptor's "The Burghers of Calais." "We looked at the Rodin as the bar, wanting to make sure whatever works we chose met the same kind of aesthetic level," Thomas said of the sculpture on view in the Visual Art Center lobby on Main Street. The art faculty considered 250 artists from the 19th to the 21st century whom the college's art studio majors are required to know. Then they began winnowing. Who made sculpture? Who made sculpture that could be exhibited outdoors? What work was available? The art faculty made its recommendations, and the college's development department set about raising hundreds of thousands of dollars, although a college official declined to specify the total cost of the sculptures. Belk-Cook and Vagt contributed. The works recently were installed - the Tucker on one side, the Gormley and Shapiro on the other - on the only patch of grass Davidson is currently watering. Looking at them one recent hot day, Thomas spoke of the conversations they will inspire. About how they were made, what they are made of, how close or far they fall from the line between realism and abstraction. All three pieces relate to Rodin's "Jean d'Aire." Tucker's piece is a frank homage to Rodin's sculpture "Man With a Broken Nose." Modeled, with ridges and voids, the Tucker looks abstract but becomes more real as you look at it. Gormley's standing figure relates to the posture of "Jean d'Aire," although the attitude is different. Shapiro's abstract work, Thomas said, looks like a lunging figure from one side and a dancer from another. He hopes the sculpture garden, which will be added to, pulls students and others out of the everyday, makes them stop and look and see not only the art but the trees, the buildings, the sky - the whole world. "And the sculptures are the key," he said.Celebrate The sculpture garden will be dedicated 4-5:30 p.m. Sept. 12 in Richardson Plaza, between the rear of Chambers Building and the entrance to E.H. Little Library on the Davidson College campus. The public is welcome. `Gumby' Artist Revisited Davidson College's securing a Joel Shapiro sculpture is a first for Charlotte, but not the first time the city has tried to get one of the New York artist's works. In 1987, the public art commission chose a proposed sculpture by Shapiro, then a rising star, for the coliseum on Tyvola Road. It was to have been a semi-abstract bronze 22 feet high. One dissenting commission member nicknamed the untitled work "Gumby" after a '50s animated cartoon figure and a controversy erupted. Morning deejays mocked it. The letters-to-the-editor columns boiled with pro and con opinions. The city council, which then had the final say on public art, rejected the piece. Instead, an environmental work with holly bushes and contoured earth by Maya Lin, designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, was built. Shapiro called the experience a "low point in my career." And the controversy hung over public art discussions for years. Shapiro was interested enough in the sculpture garden to partially donate a work. In January, Davidson will exhibit Shapiro's wood sculpture, and the artist will speak at the opening. Thomas, who visited the artist in his New York studio, said they did not discuss what happened in Charlotte 20 years ago. "It's never come up," he said.