IUPUI IUPUI IUPUI

Category: Bronze

Posted on

Wind Leaves by Bart Kister

Wind Leaves by Bart Kister

TITLE: Wind Leaves
ARTIST: Bart Kister
DATE: 1979
MATERIALS: bronze
DIMENSIONS: 4.5′ x 6″
TYPE: sculpture

Bart Kister’s Wind Leaves (1979) is a public sculpture dedicated to the memory of Dan McCracken, who worked at Riley Hospital for Children. Reminiscent of a weathervane, the sculpted leaves revolve in the wind creating the kind of movement and repetition that invites reverie. One leaf is oak, another is tulip. How do you feel when watching leaves blown by the wind? Why is it that repetition in movement or sound offers a heightened capacity for remembering?

Posted on

Untitled (Jazz Musicians) by John Spaulding

Untitled (Jazz Musicians) by John Spaulding

TITLE: Untitled (Jazz Musicians)
ARTIST: John Spaulding
DATE: 1995
MATERIALS: bronze
DIMENSIONS: 8.5′ x 19′ x 19′
TYPE: sculpture

Untitled (Jazz Musicians) (1995) is one of two sculptures found at IUPUI by native Indy artist John Spaulding (1942-2004). A tribute to the legendary heritage of jazz and performance along Indiana Avenue, each of the five figures represents an actual Indianapolis jazz musician: the guitarist is Spaulding’s father; the saxophonist is his brother, noted musician James Spaulding; the bassist is Larry Ridley; the trumpeter is Freddie Hubbard; and the drummer is ‘Killer Ray’ Appleton.

In May 2011, the figure representing James Spaulding was broken off at the knees and stolen. The sculpture also suffered several other cuts. A local newspaper reported on June 13, 2011, that police recovered the piece after it was brought to a scrap yard for sale after someone had discovered it in a trash bin.

Vandalism is always a risk for public sculpture, but this particular incident might allow us to think about other forms of vandalism and dispossession that afflicted the jazz musicians of Indiana Avenue, along with their communities, over time, on a more systemic scale.

To learn more about this artwork, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untitled_(Jazz_Musicians), which includes information created by Herron School of Art and Design and IUPUI Museum Studies faculty and students in 2009 as part of “A Survey of IUPUI Public Art.”

Posted on

Portrait of History by The Zhou Brothers

Portrait of History by The Zhou Brothers

TITLE: Portrait of History
ARTIST: ShanZuo Zhou and DaHuang Zhou
DATE: 1997
MATERIALS: bronze
DIMENSIONS: 8’4″ x 2′ x 2’6″
TYPE: sculpture


What is this strange figure? Give it some time. What does it look like to you? Does it change shape? Is this a person? A flower bud? A bird? The trunk of a tree perhaps?

Portrait of History (1997) by Chinese-American artists The Zhou Brothers, invites us to reconsider our linear approach to history by confronting us with a narrow bronze figure fixed in a state of becoming. To craft a portrait of history is to acknowledge that there are many ways to see it. To imply that there is more than one history is to suggest that history is not fixed, but continuously reshaped.

From the autonomous Chinese region of GuangXi, ShanZuo (b. 1952) and DaHuang Zhou (b. 1957) have worked out of their Chicago studio since the 1980s. “At the beginning, we knew it was interesting, but we didn’t know how special it was…” says DaHuang. “But more and more as we worked together, we realized the value of the collaboration. People think we have the same idea and bring harmony to it before coming to the canvas. That’s wrong. The value of the collaboration is that it opens up things that couldn’t happen any other way.”

Portrait of History shares its name with a series of four oil-on-paper portraits by the Zhou Brothers which are more traditional and less abstract.

To learn more about this artwork, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_History , which includes information created by Herron School of Art and Design and IUPUI Museum Studies faculty and students in 2009 as part of “A Survey of IUPUI Public Art.”

Posted on

Peirce Geodetic Monument

Peirce Geodetic Monument

TITLE: Peirce Geodetic Monument
DATE: 1987
MATERIALS: black granite, bronze
DIMENSIONS: 3′ x 1.5′
TYPE: sculpture

Have you ever heard of Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced “purse”)? He was one of the most dynamic American thinkers of all time, making significant contributions to philosophy, logic, math, and science.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, together with the U.S. National Geodetic Survey, donated and installed this sculpture at IUPUI in honor of the university’s Peirce Edition Project, an ongoing effort to publish Peirce’s personal manuscripts. Apart from memorializing Pierce’s contribution to art and science, the monument marks the precise latitude, longitude, and altitude of its location.

In a world full of smart phones linked to satellites, how have our understandings of space and place changed? What does it mean that fewer and fewer scholars follow Pierce’s lead working in both the sciences and the humanities?

To learn more about this artwork, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peirce_Geodetic_Monument, which includes information created by Herron School of Art and Design and IUPUI Museum Studies faculty and students in 2009 as part of “A Survey of IUPUI Public Art.”

Posted on

Mother’s Helper by Derek Chalfant

Mother's Helper by Derek Chalfant

TITLE: Mother’s Helper
ARTIST: Derek Chalfant
DATE: 1998
MATERIALS: stainless steel, bronze
DIMENSIONS: 15′ x 8′ x 3′
TYPE: sculpture

Can you discern all the forms that figure into Indiana-born Derek Chalfant’s provocative Mother’s Helper (1998)? Let’s start from the top: a baby’s high chair extends downward via exaggerated legs to the ground where it transforms into a rocker, straddling what appears to be a recumbent Christian Cross. At the head of the cross, there are two bronze objects: a baby and a cast of the “Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary.” How might these pieces come together to tell a story, ask a question, or make a statement?

According to Chalfant, “the high chair represents nutrients needed for life, the rocker symbolizes rest and nurturing, the baby with its head on the dictionary represents knowledge, and the cross is a symbol of spirituality—all ingredients needed for human growth.”

Can you imagine other ways of arranging these ingredients? Are there other ingredients for human growth that you might include?

A Herron alumnus who is now associate professor of art at Elmira College in Upstate New York, Chalfant’s research includes designing and making sculpture and furniture specializing in wood and metal fabrication, as well as casting metal and glass.

To learn more about this artwork, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother%27s_Helper_(sculpture),  which includes information created by Herron School of Art and Design and IUPUI Museum Studies faculty and students in 2009 as part of “A Survey of IUPUI Public Art.”

Posted on

Job by Judith Shea

Job by Judith Shea

TITLE: Job
ARTIST: Judith Shea
DATE: 2005
MATERIALS: Bronze
DIMENSIONS: 6’3″ x 3’2″ x 2’6″
TYPE: sculpture

Judith Shea’s Job (2005) depicts the iconic figure alone, ragged, exposed to the elements, looking up to the sky. Who among us has not felt the same way? The power of sculpture to materialize—on a human scale—the stories, fables, beliefs, and traditions that give our lives order and meaning is one of the central promises of the medium. The wax coating of the bronze appear as rain drops, but it also calls to mind the tears Job appears to be too tired to shed.

Born in Philadelphia in 1948, Shea is an American artist who has worked with cloth and clothing forms, hollow cast metal clothing figure forms, and carved full figure statues in a variety of mediums.

To learn more about this artwork, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_(Shea),  which includes information created by Herron School of Art and Design and IUPUI Museum Studies faculty and students in 2009 as part of “A Survey of IUPUI Public Art.”

Posted on

Glory by Garry Bibbs

Glory by Garry Bibbs

TITLE: Glory
ARTIST: Garry Bibbs
DATE: 1999
MATERIALS: bronze & steel
DIMENSIONS: 30′ x 8′ x 1′
TYPE: sculpture

Glory (1999), by African-American artist Garry R. Bibbs, was commissioned by local philanthropist Joseph F. Miller to adorn his eponymous center dedicated to combatting HIV and AIDS.

Because the site once housed the Second Baptist Church, one of the city’s oldest African-American Baptist churches, Bibbs drew on African-American traditions (including jazz), along with the Bible’s book of Ezekiel, to create a work meant to instill joy and hope.

Bibbs’ writes of his work: “Through my art, I want to share honesty about my human experiences, my African American heritage and my environment, whether it is good, bad or indifferent. Life is so precious, so it is important that my viewers feel enlightened, uplifted and free. They should be made aware that there is an answer, a power and a glory. So live a good life and be gracious in God’s creative beauty, which we are given to use as we call, the ARTS.”

To learn more about this artwork, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_(sculpture), which includes information created by Herron School of Art and Design and IUPUI Museum Studies faculty and students in 2009 as part of “A Survey of IUPUI Public Art.”

Posted on

Eve by Robert William Davidson

Eve by Robert William Davidson

TITLE: Eve
ARTIST: Robert William Davidson
DATE: 1931
MATERIALS: bronze
DIMENSIONS: Sculpture: approx. H. 5 ft. x Diam. 18 in.; Base: approx. 59 x 30 x 30 in.; Basin: approx. Diam. 130 in.
TYPE: sculpture

Robert William Davidson’s Eve was commissioned by the Indiana University Alumni Nurses Association in 1931 to commemorate an IU School of Nursing residence.

IU School of Nursing students nicknamed the fountain-based sculpture“Flo” after Florence Nightingale, the great social reformer, statistician, and founder of modern nursing.

Renaming the sculpture reminds us how local communities can claim and reimagine public art. How might calling this figure “Eve” or “Flo” change the way you experience it?

Davidson (1904-1982) was an Indianapolis native who studied sculpture at the Herron Art Institute, before leaving for Chicago, New York, and then Germany. He was a professor of art at Skidmore College in Upstate New York for 38 years.

To learn more about this artwork, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_(sculpture), which includes information created by Herron School of Art and Design and IUPUI Museum Studies faculty and students in 2009 as part of “A Survey of IUPUI Public Art.”