The Stuart Collection of UCSD, responsible for sculptures on campus such as the Sun God and the Snake Path, is preparing for a giant granite bear sculpture as its latest addition.
The largest boulder commissioned for the sculpture, weighing 90 tons, was transported to UCSD’s Camp Elliot campus on Jan. 21 and joined seven other smaller boulders with which artist Tim Hawkinson will create the piece.
The sculpture will be a granite bear in a seated position, weighing about 300 tons and measuring 22 feet in height. The bear will be built in the middle of a quad at the Jacobs School of Engineering.
“”It will really be quite a complex engineering challenge,”” said Jane Zwerneman, program director of the Stuart Collection.
According to Zwerneman, the engineering school will participate in the construction of the sculpture and help to arrange how the pieces will be held together.
Later this year, the eight separate stones that comprise the piece will be collectively moved to the UCSD campus, where Hawkinson will combine them into the finished bear form.
The proposal for this sculpture was sanctioned by the Stuart Collection International Advisory Committee before being approved by UCSD administration.
According to Zwerneman, the Stuart Collection is constantly on the lookout for potential artists and invites them to the UCSD campus to explore prospective sites for a sculpture.
Project coordinator Mathiew Gregoire then oversees the logistics of the construction of a piece and works closely with the artist.
a[There is] a contrast with simplicity with this bear,”” Zwerneman said. “”It is absolutely enormous and is being placed in the super high-tech new quad in the engineering school. There’s a lot of contrast there.””
The granite bear is the sixteenth piece in the Stuart Collection. Previous sculptures include the Trees, Vices and Virtues and the Read/Write/Think/Dream Geisel Library entrance.
The UCSD and Stuart Collection partnership began in 1982 with the aim of enriching the cultural, intellectual and scholarly life of the UCSD campus and of the San Diego community by building and maintaining site-specific works of art.
While some students said they found the public art exhibits on campus pleasing, others said they thought that the upcoming addition was unnecessary.
“”We already have a lot of buildings that catch the eye. It seems like a waste of energy, money and space,”” Eleanor Roosevelt College sophomore Natasha Cridler said. “”I feel like they could do something more useful, something that could be used by the students.””
The Stuart Collection’s range of projects is created with financial support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Russell Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the California Arts Council and the Stuart Collection Colleagues.
