Art Out

An informal survey of students' reaction to campus art

Photo credit: S. Kramer

The Center of the Universe by Bruce Nauman

People can become oblivious to their surroundings. Students face the distractions of homework and social lives as they wonder between Central Avenue and Lomas Boulevard.

As the semester meanders to a close, students may have walked the same path about 32 times in a 16-week period, and that's just a per-class estimate. In the course of a four-year degree program, familiarity with the campus environment can turn the physical space into background.

Can public art pull students out of their day-to-day doldrums?

Art is often touted as the expression of the human spirit that can pull a person's mind out of the doldrums. Does campus art at UNM hold this power? Some students talk about the art that makes--or breaks--the unique character of the UNM campus.

Photo credit: S. Kramer

Statues as part of an artwork about the way people consider abstract art outside the SUB.

Junior Audrey Johnson said if artwork is new, she's more likely to notice it. "I did notice it [art around campus] when I first got here, but, like anything, as time goes on it just becomes part of the environment you see every day," Johnson said.

Senior David Doyle said he hardly notices art on campus. "That I don't notice any art says as much about the way I ride my bike through campus as anything," Doyle said. "I'm usually steering clear of pedestrians."

Johnson said, "I think the campus would be decidedly different without them and that they add to the personality of school."

The Good
Students seem to appreciate the abstract.

"My favorite campus art is the sculpture outside Scholes Hall and the pointy metal sculpture by the duck pond," Johnson said.

Photo credit: S. Kramer

The silver sculpture on the duck pond catches the sun--and students' attention.

Senior Heather Morris also enjoys the abstract piece by the duck pond that "moves with the winds." "I just have fun watching it," Morris said.

Junior Kyle Maier said he also likes an art work that takes a little bit of figuring out. "My favorite is the Center of the Universe because it represents both duality and all-inclusiveness to me," Maier said. "And it's got great acoustics."

Doyle cited an atypical kind of art, neighbor to the "pointy metal thing," as his favorite. "The

Photo credit: S. Kramer

A student relaxes by the duck pond, which student David Doyle cited as his favorite work of landscape architecture on campus.

duck pond is great art. Great landscape art," he said. "Like, it's water in the middle of the desert, and it's got wildlife."

The Unofficial
"I love the stencils. I love it when I see a new stencil. They're what art I'm noticing most on campus," Morris said. She said they are the most free form of artistic expression, since statues probably had to go through committees and red tape.

Johnson also expressed an appreciation of more guerrilla type artwork on campus. "I appreciate street art near the art building more because I know it probably comes from students," she said.

"I think the coolest--but creepiest--art lately was the 'Lars Sees You'

Photo credit: S. Kramer

An eye inside a sun, the work of a chalker, stares at anyone who walks between Mitchell Hall and Ortega.

stuff," said recent UNM graduate and now UNM employee Alicia Garcia. The phrase "Lars Sees You" was chalked all over campus and printed on fliers.

The Ugly?
One statue got two thumbs down from two different students.

"My least favorite is that stupid statue outside Popejoy--the fiesta dancers," said senior Heather Morris.

Recent UNM graduate and now UNM employee Alicia Garcia said, "I love-hate the flamenco dancers outside Johnson. I appreciate it as an attempt to represent Southwestern culture, but they're not a good representation."

Photo credit: S. Kramer

Luis Jiménez' Fiesta Dancers greet passersby on the campus Cornell mall entrance.

Morris said she thinks it poorly represents UNM. "It's the first thing people see when they come to UNM, and it's so ugly," she said.

Written April 21, 2009

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