 Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit is Firmly Grounded at USF
The hole in the grass east of St. Ignatius Church and marked off with a chain fence is not a minor construction site. Those plastic-topped boxes buried snugly in the dirt at the church’s southeast corner? Not some curious hydroponic experiment. And that ancient-looking kayak made of metal lying on the grass a few feet from the hole? Well, that may just be an ancient-looking kayak made of metal.
Interpretation is entirely up to the viewer in the University of San Francisco’s second annual outdoor sculpture exhibit. Featuring five works by Bay Area sculptors, documentarians, and other artists, the show is on display in and around Welch Field through Dec. 16. Titled “Borders/Crossings,” the show is sponsored by the Thacher Gallery and the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, and features work by artists Ray Beldner, Candi Farlice, Yishitomo Saito, Sharon Siskin, and William T. Wiley.
“I think it’s good for the USF community to look at this show and make an effort to respect and understand the work and the concepts involved,” said curator Richard Kamler.
Beldner, the artist responsible for the hole and chain fence, recently had his work featured in the Oakland Museum of Art and the Moran Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea. Beldner’s sculpture for USF, “Fallen,” features a cast of a nude person lying at the bottom of a hole or “well” (see photo). According to Beldner, the ambiguity of the figure (dead or alive, male or female) represents the thin line between fact and fiction, sacred and profane.
Farlice’s piece is the group of glass-covered boxes buried near St. Ignatius Church. Titled “Verge,” the objects represent responses from students about what borders are, Farlice said.
Saito, a recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Award, is a sculptor from Ohio. His piece for the USF campus is a cast bronze sculpture of a kayak called “Pacific Crossing.” The kayak serves as a metaphor for his personal story of emigrating across the Pacific Ocean to the United States.
Berkeley artist Siskin recently exhibited work at the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture and the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco. Her work for USF, “(In)visible,” uses the glass walls of the Gleeson Library/ Geschke Center as a backdrop for her vinyl letters and pictures depicting the homeless. The words on the glass are excerpts from interviews Siskin conducted with homeless people on their daily survival. Siskin’s intent is to reveal the economic and social disparities of the Bay Area.
Wiley’s art has been displayed most recently in San Francisco’s de Young Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in Honolulu. His work for USF, “What’s the Wind For,” is a cloth banner located in front of the Gleeson Library/Geschke Center. It is inscribed with metaphorical sketches and a poem by poet Michael Hannon.
As curator, Kamler decided on a theme for the show and invited artists to participate. “I like to get artists from different backgrounds who can bring a range of concepts (to the specific theme of the exhibit),” he said. “For example, Saito explores the theme (border crossings) with his story of crossing the Pacific, which is a physical crossing, while Siskin analyzes social borders…. The art should provide a range of ideas that people can reflect on, and in difficult times, find solace in.”
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