The new sculpture, “A Startling Whirlwind of Opportunity,” by New York-based artist Alice Aycock sits smack dab in the center of the Pedestrian Mall with countless numbers of students passing by it daily, taking slightly different trajectories in their walks than they did last year.
For many, it was hard not to take notice of the spiraling piece, and to say students have an opinion on the structure is an understatement.
A Facebook group titled “The Pedestrian Mall Sculpture is Hideous!” sprung up quickly, and it has 921 members as of press time. The group’s description calls the sculpture an “eyesore” and “of poor artistic quality.”
Aycock, who was in Knoxville for the installation of the sculpture during the summer, said she heard some student reaction but little because of the decreased student population during the summer sessions.
But dealing with public criticism of art is not new to Aycock, a veteran artist whose work dates back to the 1970s and whose art has displayed in museums throughout America, Europe and Japan, according to her Web site.
“I think there’s a misconception that art is something one doesn’t have to be educated about a little bit, just like you have to be educated about any other subject,” she said.
Some students complained that the structure was wasting students\\\' university dollars, but the sculpture was funded by private donation from UT alumnus Wilton D. “Chick” Hill.
Aycock also said that a lot of time and effort went into the piece.
“This isn’t just something that was just thrown out there,” she said. “It really was a complicated piece to build and design, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was totally cutting edge, but it’s certainly using the available technology that we use today to do something, to push it.”
The man Aycock said spearheaded the project, Jason Brown, associate professor in sculpture, said he\\\'s heard a wide variety of opinions on the sculpture. Many students, he said, enjoy the whirlwind part of the sculpture but not the lighting.
Brown said art opinion comes from experience, and, while Brown has heard “less-than-educated passing comments” from students on the sculpture, he’s also had conversations about it taking an entirely different tone with some in his public art seminar class and one student from Chattanooga who talked with Brown about the sculptures on the waterfront.
Ultimately, Brown said the discourse about the piece adds to it.
“I think good art, whether it’s outdoor sculpture in public or it’s in a gallery in a museum, is not something everyone\\\'s going to agree on,” he said. “And if there’s some discussion, debate, controversy, it means that the artwork, in my opinion, is more meaningful, has more value.”
One of the major concerns of many students is the placement of the piece in the middle of the Pedestrian Mall.
Brown said the placement was specifically stated in the UT Master Plan as being to the right of the center location of the piece, but, due to fire code restrictions, it had to be moved to the center.
The semifinalists for the project were told that the middle of the Pedestrian Mall was the designated spot for the public art piece. The winner did not choose the location.
Josh Mays, junior in history and member of the sculpture Facebook group, said he thinks putting the piece in the middle of the Pedestrian Mall was a bad idea.
“I think it’s poor placement,” Mays said. “It maybe doesn’t have a great effect, but it certainly at least somewhat impedes the flow of pedestrians up and down the mall.”
Zack Crane, senior in electrical engineering and another member of the Facebook group, agreed.
“You think about it like an interstate,” Crane said. “You drop something that big and that bulky in the middle of the interstate, it’s going to cause problems.”
Mays also said he felt the piece did not fit with the Pedestrian Mall.
“It’s not really a prime location for the sculpture,” Mays said. “It kind of distracts from the idea of the Pedestrian Mall itself. It takes away from the plaques on the ground, denoting the history of the university.”
In contrast, Aycock said the architecture of the mall made her feel like something was missing.
“As you walk up there, there’s all of those engraved stones with all of those dates, and usually when you have a series of concentric circles, you expect something to be in the center,” Aycock said. “And the fact that there was nothing there, I felt was kind of weird.”
Because of the central location of the piece, Aycock set out, in the design, to make it visually dynamic from all different points of view.
“While it is a series of whirling circles, it is never the same as you move around it, and also you can’t just sort of remember it from looking at it one time, which was interesting to me,” she said. “I wanted it to be a kind of visual journey, so you can’t just say, ‘Oh, I saw that.’”
She said she set out to make the visually complicated piece signify the flow of ideas when a collegiate student pursues his or her interests.
“Ideas start to come together, and you begin to make sort of mental connections,” she said. “And sometimes those are new connections, and you get very excited because one idea leads to the next,” she said. “... And for me, it’s always this kind of whirlwind sort of experience where it’s almost like playing a game of pinball.”
Brown said the eight-person committee chose Aycock out of the four semifinalists, from an original 220 applicants, because she set herself apart from the others with a visually unique proposal which also stayed true to the theme of opportunity that the donor asked for.
The dedication of “A Startling Whirlwind of Opportunity” will take place on Sept. 11 at 10:15 a.m. with Aycock, Hill and Chancellor Jimmy Cheek in attendance, Brown said. A panel discussion on public art and design issues at the Knoxville Museum of Art will occur on Sept. 10 at 3 p.m., and a reception at the museum and a lecture by Aycock on her works will take place Sept. 10 at 6:30 p.m.