Mark Bradford: What Hath God Wrought - Stuart Collection at UC San Diego

An 800-foot-long stone path of words, KAHNOP • TO TELL A STORY is the 22nd public artwork commissioned by the Stuart Collection at UC San Diego. The text for the UC San Diego walkway draws from the writing of authors and scholars with ties to the University and its history. Organized by a spine of keywords composed by Ann Hamilton, this concordance of documents weaves together threads of thinking from many different disciplines. The piece was built line by line, rather than as a singular continuous narrative, and yet clear themes emerge and recur throughout the 1,300-line composition. A feminist narrative transcribed by two Kumeyaay scholars exists in bands situated at a regular interval throughout the entire length of the piece, creating its own cadence and rhythm within the larger whole. These juxtapositions form a field of text and an infinite number of paths to be composed and recomposed every time someone walks its surface. Series: "Stuart Collection at UC San Diego" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 39374]

An 800-foot-long stone path of words, KAHNOP • TO TELL A STORY is the 22nd public artwork commissioned by the Stuart Collection at UC San Diego. The text for the UC San Diego walkway draws from the writing of authors and scholars with ties to the University and its history. Organized by a spine of keywords composed by Ann Hamilton, this concordance of documents weaves together threads of thinking from many different disciplines. The piece was built line by line, rather than as a singular continuous narrative, and yet clear themes emerge and recur throughout the 1,300-line composition. A feminist narrative transcribed by two Kumeyaay scholars exists in bands situated at a regular interval throughout the entire length of the piece, creating its own cadence and rhythm within the larger whole. These juxtapositions form a field of text and an infinite number of paths to be composed and recomposed every time someone walks its surface. Series: "Stuart Collection at UC San Diego" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 38928]

This functional, polished, granite drinking fountain is an exact replica in granite of commercial metal fountains typically found in schools, business offices and government buildings. Instead of its usual context as interior office furniture, the fountain is placed monument-like on a grass island in the center of UC San Diego's Town Square. The siting of his work is fundamental to its meaning; it is counter posed with a tall American flag and a granite marker commemorating Camp Matthews, a World War II training center and artillery and rifle range which occupied the land on which UCSD now stands. Asher's work projects several cultural references into one modest object, and it is a play on sculpture's historic role as representation. Series: "Stuart Collection at UC San Diego" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 37814]

John Baldessari decided first to transform the main doors of UCSD’s iconic Geisel Library and then to incorporate the entire lobby space, choosing students as his subject. The existing clear glass of the doors was replaced with glass in primary colors, perhaps suggesting primary sources of information. As the doors open and close, the colored panes cross over each other, visually mixing into new colors. Above the doors the words READ, WRITE, THINK and DREAM echo the exhortation Baldessari gave his students to remember that beyond the day-to-day grind comes the chance to contemplate the unexpected and envision new worlds. Baldessari, once again, has absorbed the culture around him, using the latest techniques to create a collage juxtaposing photographs, words, and colors, which all loop back on each other to spark new associations and thoughts. Series: "Stuart Collection at UC San Diego" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 37820]

In 1992, for the Stuart Collection, Jenny Holzer created "Green Table," a large granite picnic or refectory table and benches inscribed with texts. Holzer's table and benches monumentalize an ordinary and functional set of objects. Like all tables, Holzer's work serves as an informal gathering place for students and faculty to eat, study, or play. But the various attitudes Holzer adopts in her writings – from humorous commentary to politically charged criticism – also create a site for questioning and debate. Series: "Stuart Collection at UC San Diego" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 37816]

The female figure atop "Standing" calls forth thoughts of human strength and frailty, and both the power and the limits of medicine. Serene and ageless, she stands in a Madonna-like pose that is both vulnerable and generous. Ribbons of water - the source of life - flow from her hands into the rock-lined pond below, with a soothing sound. The skin surface of the body itself is violated to reveal the musculature and tendons of arms and calves, reflecting Kiki Smith's interest in such anatomical illustrations and models. A "necklace" of starfish-headed pins, placed in the shape of the constellation Virgo, pierces the flesh, calling up a profusion of associations, from acupuncture to dissection to martyrdom. With these tiny starfish like a veil of Virgo gems, the delicate pins call up at once the oceanic and the celestial, in an image that speaks of mind and body, of flesh and healing. Series: "Stuart Collection at UC San Diego" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 37819]

"Red Shoe" has brought to life a formerly forgotten corner of campus. It is an alluring place for children to climb, its smooth exterior giving way to a roughly hull-like interior, hinting at the enclosure of a nest or fort. Narratives come to mind as fantasy evokes the resonance of childhood rhymes and tales. In the words of Robert Storr, Dean of the Yale University School of Art, "Reason presides over universities; it remains for artists to give substance to those areas of consciousness that reason has not and perhaps cannot articulate." Series: "Stuart Collection at UC San Diego" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 37818]

Do Ho Suh’s work explores the notions of home, cultural displacement, one’s perception of space and how one builds a memory of it. What is home, after all? A place? An idea? A sentiment? A memory? A small cottage has been picked up, as if by some mysterious force, and “landed” atop Jacobs Hall at UC San Diego, where it sits crookedly on one corner, cantilevered out over the ground seven stories below. A lush roof garden of vines, flowers and vegetables, frequented by birds and bees, is a small gathering place with panoramic views of the campus and beyond. Upon entering the house it becomes apparent that the floor and the house itself are at different angles, causing a sense of dislocation – some would say vertigo. One must adjust both physically and mentally in order to accommodate a whole new view of the world. The surroundings are familiar but the feeling is not. Series: "Stuart Collection at UC San Diego" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 37823]

Jackie Ferrara designed a series of three distinct spaces at UCSD's Cellular and Molecular Medicine Facility. Each area is paved with a similar linear pattern of green, red, and black slate and surrounded by compacted gravel. Each has a unique character, but the terraces flow into one another becoming one continuous space. She has placed Australian willows and benches in lines that echo the grid of the slate and the lines of the low walls. The cloistered intimacy of the terraces, with their suggestion of early or monumental architecture, provides a space of contemplation for the scientists who work in the center, and articulates and emphasizes the architectural motifs of the building itself. Series: "Stuart Collection at UC San Diego" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 37813]

A 199-foot tall metal flag-pole-like sculpture is mounted with a flashing light which playfully spells out “What Hath God Wrought” in Morse Code. The titular phrase is notably the first message Samuel Morse tested and transmitted across 41 miles in 1844. The sculpture reflects both the origins of the university as well as the origins of present-day communications: Morse Code is at the root of our contemporary era of information exchange, where communication travels instantaneously. Morse’s good-humored, secular message is interpreted thoughtfully by Mark Bradford and aligned with the artist’s expansive work depicting communities and reflecting on our shared cultural history. With this epic artwork, Bradford explores the physical means behind past and present-day communication that underlines his greater practice. Series: "Stuart Collection at UC San Diego" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 37825]