Fall 2002

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New art in Weimer Hall stirs media debate


First Amendment sculpture by Richard Heipp (Photo by James Leslie)

Acrylic montage by Robbie Rucker (Photo by Jen Sens)
‘Wavelengths’ sculpture by Don Dickson (Photo by Jen Sens)

by Ralph Lowenstein

Alumni returning to Weimer Hall for a visit this fall or next spring might think they have landed in the College of Fine Arts. There’s been an explosion of art in the building this fall, some of it controversial enough to make the pages of The Gainesville Sun and the Alligator.

Two of the pieces of art were commissioned in 2000 as part of the College’s commemoration of its 75th anniversary – and completed only this year.

One of these, as yet unnamed, is an acrylic montage on five overlapping panels, fastened to the wall in the hallway outside the Dean’s Office on the second floor. It is essentially a sign proclaiming that this is the College of Journalism and Communications, with its history of print and broadcasting, set within the environment of Florida. It includes a NASA spacecraft, communication satellites, TV camera, microphone, cranes, trees, clouds and even a communigator logo.

A critic could call it interesting and busy, but not really controversial. The work was created and executed by Robbie Rucker, a Gainesville artist and owner of the Festival Sign Company.

All the controversy was packed into a four-panel sculpture by College of Fine Arts faculty member Richard Heipp. The second of the two works commissioned in 2000, this one takes as its theme the First Amendment, with phrases from the amendment labeling each four-foot-square panel.

This sculpture, also as yet unnamed, is far more visible. The panels were attached to the walls of the Knight Courtyard. The images, in profile, are cut out of the flat surface of metal, and backlighted with neon symbols. What is slightly subdued during the daylight hours becomes a completely different array of colorful panels in the evening.

The first panel shows a typewriter keyboard; the fourth panel is Rodin’s “The Thinker.” Nothing unusual there. But the second panel, reprising Richard Nixon’s post-resignation farewell-with-two-armed-victory-sign in the doorway of a helicopter, and the third panel, with a profile of a cinematographer, have drawn all the attention.

Faculty members on the left have complained that the artist is “glorifying” Nixon; some on the right feel the College is kicking a former President who deserves much better. As for the cinematographer, artist Heipp made the mistake of explaining that he modeled the sculpture from a photo of Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl’s cameraman. A letter to the Alligator, and comments over the Internet, accused the College of lionizing a Hitler flunky. Both the Alligator and the Sun picked up on the controversy with lengthy stories. The Sun produced spectacular color photographs taken at night.

Amidst the controversy, a third new work of art, commissioned as part of the recently-completed Radio Reading Service for the Blind wing of Weimer, has been almost completely ignored. In fact, this work is named, and doesn’t just stand there and light up. “Wavelengths,” by metal sculptor Don Dickson, has clusters of steel rods that can actually be shoved against each other, producing a very loud and not very melodic cacophony of sound.

But that was the intention. After all, “Wavelengths” cannot be seen by some of the visitors to the new wing, so it was meant to be friendly to the touch.

So the College has provided lights, sound and deep (maybe) meaning in its three new creations. It invites alumni to take a tour and join the world of art criticism.

Editor’s Note: Dean Emeritus Lowenstein is no stranger to art criticism. He commissioned the “Media’s People” sculpture for Weimer Hall in 1980 and took the heat.

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New art in Weimer Hall stirs media debate