Sculpture unveiling marks a new era of public art at USC
After a careful journey through the streets of Los Angeles and six hours of cautious maneuvering, USC’s newest piece of public art — a one-ton sculpture by Enrique Martínez Celaya — settled into its home outside the USC Fisher Museum of Art.
“The Well” is the latest example of the university’s commitment to art in public spaces. USC President Carol L. Folt and other university leaders attended the event.
“Public art is a way of engaging all of our community in an aesthetic journey together …,” said Selma Holo, professor of art history at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and executive director of USC Museums and Galleries. “The USC Fisher Museum of Art was the first museum in the city of Los Angeles, so we have engaged in public art before, but we feel a new energy under President Folt encouraging us to be even more energetic in this area of collecting and display.”
Other prominent examples of public art at USC include a new mural that will adorn the walls of the USC Center for Black Cultural and Student Affairs (CBCSA) and a mixed-media painting that now hangs in the Ronald Tutor Campus Center.
Holo said the CBCSA mural represents an inclusive and accessible vision for art and provides an entry point to reach broader audiences throughout our community. Its design commemorates Black History Month and expresses empowerment and Black excellence at USC.
USC visitors now can also see a piece from artist Lien Truong, titled “The toxic cleanse of warm rain,” recently installed in the Ronald Tutor Campus Center’s lobby.
But “The Well” is perhaps even more prominent as it rises outside USC Fisher, a highly visible springboard for USC’s renewed emphasis on public art, an effort that will coalesce through an arts initiative spearheaded by USC Trustees David Bohnett and Kathy Leventhal, who also chairs the USC Dornsife Board of Councilors.
Massive sculpture installation marks renewed focus on accessible art at USC
“The Well” is part of a collection that Martínez Celaya began producing in 2011 called The Tears of Things. The works revolve around the concept of cleansing and revealing what is inside while exploring displacement, exile and art’s capacity to uncover or create meaning.
“Even though the girl is crying, I look at this piece as a very sort of positive piece,” said Martínez Celaya, Provost Professor of Humanities and Arts with joint appointments at USC Dornsife and the USC Roski School of Art and Design. “Everything that we go through, as painful as it is, it’s an opportunity to reconsider what’s important.”
He described the installment of the sculpture at USC as an effort by the community and for the community.
“This was a communal effort, including my assistants and USC facilities workers,” Martínez Celaya said.
Another critical factor: the long-time USC donor and art collector who gifted the sculpture to the museum.
“I was planning to do a major exhibition for the artist at USC Fisher this spring when one of our beloved major donors, Mei-Lee Ney, offered to give this important piece to the museum,” Holo said. “It was a glorious surprise.”
Careful installation of new artwork represents milestone for USC artist
But the sculpture’s journey to USC wasn’t an easy one.
Just days before the official unveiling, the sculpture had to make its way east from the artist’s studio in Culver City to the University Park campus, some seven miles away.
The sculpture is top-heavy and fragile and weighs more than a ton. Each maneuver from the flatbed truck and forklift to the base outside the museum left the artist feeling understandably nervous.
“We had a plan,” Martínez Celaya, “but with every tilt, move or strapping, the shell of the bronze could be damaged at any point, and so I was concerned until the very end.”
It took more than six hours to install the massive piece, but once in place, it marked the first stage in a momentous milestone. Martínez Celaya will open his exhibition Sea, Sky, and Land: Towards a Map of Everything at the museum next spring.
“Our exhibition will be the first museum exhibition for the artist in Los Angeles,” Holo said.