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The Stuart Collection at the University of California, San Diego seeks to enrich the cultural, intellectual, and scholarly life of the UCSD campus and of the San Diego community by building and maintaining a unique collection of site-specific works by leading artists of our time. It has been inventive in both its curatorial point of view and its working processes. Projects that are chosen for realization by the advisory committee are then submitted to a campus review process. The chancellor gives final approval on all commissions. Throughout the proposal, design and construction processes, artists select and tailor their work to a specific UCSD site. Great care is taken to incorporate the university's long- and short-range plans while maintaining the integrity of the art and providing provocative, thoughtful, and carefully considered additions to the fabric of campus life. Many of the artists who have designed works for the collection are associated with movements or attitudes- particularly the various manifestations of conceptual art pioneered in the 1970's- which are seldom represented in public sculpture collections. A significant number of the artists have been better known for their work in other areas before creating their first permanent outdoor sculpture for the Stuart Collection. The 1,200-acre UCSD campus is located in La Jolla in northern San Diego on a dramatic mesa above the Pacific Ocean. It contains natural chaparral-filled canyons, eucalyptus groves, urban plazas, and green lawns. The campus architecture ranges from California cottages, World War II barracks, and structures from the fifties and sixties to more recent buildings influenced by postmodern architecture. Since its establishment in 1960, UCSD has emerged as one of the leading institutions of higher education in the United States. Including the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the School of Medicine, and the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, UCSD now has an enrollment of more than 25,000 graduate and undergraduate students and is known worldwide for its research strengths in a variety of disciplines. text from: |