Fits and Starts

Last month, DePauw University installed a sculpture by New York artist Marc Swanson in the middle of campus along a main walkway. The subject matter was innocuous enough – a leaping deer. Had the sculpture been bronze or rusting steel, I’m sure I wouldn’t be sitting here writing about it, but Swanson’s deer was encrusted with rhinestones, apparently a giant no-no for the upper-middle class. Entitled “Fits and Starts,” the deer emitted a shimmering rainbow aura when the light was right. It stood out from the sedate bureaucratic architecture and bland bronze effigies scattered across the campus and raised more than a few eyebrows. There were individuals that really liked the deer, and other who came to like it, but there were plenty of faculty and students alike who expressed their vociferous dislike of the deer and dubbed it “Disco Deer” and “Glambi” (my personal favorite).

It didn’t take long before name-calling and disgusted looks escalated to vandalism of the deer. Pictures surfaced on a website of students riding the deer in various states of dress and undress. First an antler was cracked, followed by another antler, then the legs, then antler tips went missing (no doubt trophies of a drunken night), all the while rhinestones were being shaved off of the deer’s hide and littered the ground around the sculpture like Liberace’s dandruff. Eventually the damage became so severe that the sculpture had to be removed for conservation and reevaluation.

Upon further examination of the deer, there was more damage to it than was executed by just a handful of drunk, naked students mounting it. The antlers were bent in such a way that it would have taken multiple people all pushing in unison in an effort to crack the antler off.

I would like to point out that DePauw University sits in Greencastle — a very rural city in west-central Indiana. It is generally very quiet. The student body is made up primarily of mid-western students from well-off families. “Fits and Starts” sat in Brooklyn for a full year before coming to Greencastle, IN. While in Brooklyn it never sustained heavy damage beyond normal wear and tear for an outdoor sculpture. Yet it did not survive more than two weeks in Greencastle.

There are a myriad of reasons* that have been mulled over as to why students would want to wreak such havoc on a piece of sculpture. Some claim that there wasn’t enough warning that it was going to be placed on campus and thus the emotional distress of seeing a shimmering buck on their morning walk freaked them out sufficiently to lead them to violent tendencies. Doubtful. Others state that they didn’t know that it was art. So, you don’t destroy art, but random landscape decorations are fair game. Some claim that they did not know that the deer wasn’t supposed to be mounted; that their art etiquette education was lacking so they did not realize that it wasn’t kosher to strip naked and climb atop a bejeweled deer or try to rips its antlers out. Hmmmm, no. Some blame the boredom that breeds within rich spoiled children who don’t have jobs or responsibility as the culprit behind such violent outlets. This feels much closer to the truth.

*These are all honest-to-goodness reasons that students have offered to explain the destruction of the deer.

Trophy

At the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, a bronze by Wim Delvoye was installed in their new sculpture garden this summer. The sculpture depicts two elk kissing and having intercourse, human style. At first, perhaps a few quiet and gasps escaped pursed lips, but there were no real public problems with the piece. The gallery staff didn’t hear a peep of complaint. After a short while the news media began to try to stir up controversy. Reporters were seen pounding the pavement near the sculpture pointing out the sculpture to passersby and asking if they were offended by the two copulating elk. Of course, the reactions were mixed and the story generated enough “controversy” for them to air it (thereby omitting actual “news” from their broadcast).

However there has been no graffiti, no broken antlers, no real damage to the elk. No one snapped off a trophy from Trophy to take home and mount to their wall. I’m sure there has been a fair amount of (ahem) mounting of the sculpture in the wee small hours, but no violent recourse by the student body or general public — just mild disgust and confused looks.

Why was a simple, morally inoffensive sculpture defiled, while another sculpture depicting a sex act in public remain unharmed? What elements and series of events are missing from the elk scenario that played out so harshly for Swanson’s deer? Because the elk are quietly making love in the back of a sculpture garden, no one violates them whereas Swanson’s deer sits smack-dab in the middle of campus? Did people sense the fragility of Swanson’s materials and thereby take advantage of its weaknesses whereas Delvoye’s bronze would require too much effort to damage? Was it because Swanson’s deer was unveiled during deer hunting season so it was fair game? There are some interesting aspects of the collision of human nature and art that are at work in these two stories. I’ll let you sort those out.