Art, Space, and Exploration: A Chronological Look at Public Art on our Campus

By Nico Sama, AD&A Museum Curatorial Intern

The public art that dots our campus is often overlooked, unnoticed, or simply seen as part of UC Santa Barbara’s landscape. Why is that? Was it intentional? What are these works? To best answer these questions, we must look at the history of public art on our campus and understand the chronological phases that it has undergone. 

The oldest works of public art on campus are a statue trio created by Haig Patigian in 1929. Titled Industry, Navigation, and Aviation, each statue was originally intended to represent the economic powerhouses of Los Angeles during the Great Depression. These three statues, along with a fourth, decorated the main tympanum of the Richfield Tower in Los Angeles. The final statue, Postal Service, is also in the collection of the Art, Design & Architecture Museum at UC Santa Barbara. However, it is incomplete and in need of conservation, and therefore has remained in storage. Although not necessarily created for the campus, they reflect the grandiose appeal of public art in the early 20th century and the spirit of conservation at the AD&A Museum. In fact, these statues were acquired by UCSB thanks to the efforts of Professor David Gebhard, a UC Santa Barbara professor of architecture and founder of the Architecture and Design Collection (ADC), who worked to bring the Art Deco sculptures to campus in 1969 upon the demolition of the tower.

The public works of the mid-to-late 20th century are a dramatic departure from the grandiosity of Industry, Navigation, and Aviation. Unlike the figurative statues that Patigian molded into the Art Deco style, later public art found on UCSB’s campus embraces the varied forms of abstraction. In the early 1980s, artists emphasized the relationship of their works of art with their surrounding environments, becoming juxtapositions to the natural world while also integrating into the landscape. The most representative works of this period are Mowry Baden’s Untitled (1981) and Dr. Ernest Shaw’s works Shongon XXIII, Ruins VII, and Ruins V, all of which were built in 1978. These four works, when viewed as isolated entities, seem quite unnatural and incomprehensible. However, when viewed in the context of nature, they become something else entirely. The sharp edges and curious angles of Dr. Shaw’s works are oddly comparable to the complexity of the tree’s branches that surround them, assimilating into the landscape. The same goes for Untitled, whose liminal and unbounded space blends into the hill on which it is built. This period of public art is defined by the idea of folding into their landscapes.

At the turn of the century, and to this day, public art in UCSB has taken on an approach far more akin to the individualization of white-box galleries within contemporary museums. Unlike the previous works discussed, these public pieces are visually separated and distinct from their organic surroundings, asserting themselves through modern industrial materials, kinetic energy, and structural independence. This era introduced dynamic movement and sleek materiality to the campus landscape. 

Peter Logan’s Flying Pencils (1986), constructed of aluminum and stainless steel, reaches into the air, relying on structural balance. Similarly, George Rickey’s Annular Eclipse VI (1998-2000) utilizes stainless steel to create a captivating, reflective presence that commands attention rather than blending into the hills. Other works from this period, like Evan Lewis's Quiet Storm (1990), also lean heavily into the aesthetics of painted steel and aluminum. The introduction of technology further pushed these boundaries, as seen in Clyde Lynds's Torso VIII, Robe (1989), which incorporates modern fiber optics alongside concrete and aluminum.

In the 21st century, the combination of industrialism and abstraction continued. Fletcher Benton’s Folded Circle T and Arc (2012) embraces environmental interaction through its use of Cor-ten weathering steel, allowing the sculpture's surface to continuously oxidize and change over time.

Perhaps the most radical departure from traditional freestanding sculpture at UCSB is Stephen Westfall’s 2015 mural entitled Argus. Rendered in wall paint directly on the exterior of the AD&A Museum, it abandons the physical boundaries of the isolated art object entirely. By utilizing the institution’s very walls as the canvas, it challenges viewers to reconsider where the museum ends and the public sphere begins.

Ultimately, traversing the campus is much like walking through an outdoor gallery. From the didactic, monumental statues of the 1920s to the integrated architectural expressions of today, UCSB's public art serves as a chronological ledger of shifting curatorial philosophies, material explorations, and the ever-changing line between artifact and art.