wpperspectives
New Sculptures Grace Campus
For twenty years, William Paterson University has housed a significant collection of outdoor sculpture, providing the entire campus community with a rare opportunity to interact with artwork on a daily basis in a setting outside a gallery or museum. In the past year, three new sculptures have been added to the collection. Two are in Zanfino Plaza on the walkway between the Cheng Library and Wayne Hall: “Tango” by California artist Bill Barrett and “Odyssey ( A Journey)” by New York artist Maria Hall. The third, “City in a Mine” by Caspar Henselmann of New York, is situated on the lawn opposite the 1600 Valley Road Building, and is the first sculpture sited there. “The continued development of the campus has opened new locations for the placement of outdoor sculpture,” says Nancy Einreinhofer, director of the Ben Shahn Galleries, who created the Sculpture on Campus program in 1990. “These new works have allowed us to integrate art throughout the campus that can stimulate discussion and discovery among our students, faculty, and the public.” With twenty-two works, the University’s Sculpture on Campus program represents one of the largest collections of public sculpture in New Jersey. William Paterson is the only higher education institution in the state with a formal program dedicated to placing public sculpture. Einreinhofer encourages members of the campus to stop by the Ben Shahn Galleries for a self-guided booklet that provides a map of the collection, as well as information on each sculpture, including a biography of the artist and an artist’s statement about the work. “Contemporary sculpture reflects the culture we live in, and because public sculpture is large-scale, it is confrontational by nature,” she continues. “Ultimately, the question is how sculpture addresses us as human beings, and challenges our thoughts and feelings. This is rewarding for all of us.”
“Tango” a nine-foot-tall work by Bill Barrett “challenges gravity as its forms dance in an upward and outward movement,” says Einreinhofer. The sculpture was donated to the University by Dr. Jay Hyman
Caspar Henselman’s “City in a Mine,” is the artist’s second sculpture located on the campus. “Most of my work has a scientific connotation,” he says, and reflects “an analogy to the structural order found in biological organisms”
Maria Hall’s abstract steel sculpture “Odyssey (A Journey)” deals with the “relationships of form and space,” says the artist
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