Sculptor's dog-killing past threatens WSU project

[The Straight Story]

Sculptor's dog-killing past threatens WSU project
BY CHRIS SHULL
The Wichita Eagle

WSU’s plans to install a giant bronze millipede on campus are in question because the artist, Tom Otterness, shot and killed a dog 30 years ago for an art film.

The discovery that Wichita-born sculptor Tom Otterness deliberately shot and killed a dog 30 years ago -- an act that ended up as an art film -- could threaten plans by Wichita State University to put one of his pieces on campus next year.

The school commissioned the $450,000 piece, a giant bronze millipede, last year. It had planned to release information about the discovery of Otterness' act Monday, once students and staff returned from spring break, said Ted Ayres, WSU general counsel.

The Eagle learned about the matter Friday.

"We want to open the door for people to express an opinion," Ayres said. "I think it is important to have discussions and see where that goes and then make decisions."

But he said WSU's art advisory board, which worked with Otterness during the months-long commissioning process, stands by the artist and the sculpture.

http://www.kansas.com/212/story/27623.html

"I can tell you at this stage the commission is going forward," he said. "We are planning to install the piece in 2008."

[catnhatnh]

1. I won't kill an innocent animal....

but I will defecate on your naked mother while wearing a wetsuit to convince you I'm a serious enough artist to go for the (450K) gold, you pretentious asswipe...

[Orrex]

2. Don't feel bad, Tom--if you kill cats you can still become a Senator

A half-assed, ineffectual, rubber-stamping Senator, but a Senator all the same.

[Forrest Greene]

3. I've Been An Artist All My Life

Professionally & personally. My whole thing is to communicate as best I can.

But I won't really even try to communicate how much I despise a twerp like this guy.

[juno jones]

4. I'm an artist but...

...It was asses like him, and like the one who bottled crucifixes in urine and such that really helped the RW-fundies strip arts funding in this country. Artistic statement my patootie!

[ConsAreLiars]

6. You claim to be an artist, but you can't

tell the difference between putting a piece of kitsch in a glass of piss and killing a dog? Oh how sick you are! Best wishes. Hope you learn the difference between murdering a sentient being and dropping a piece of metal into a liquid. A faint hope, sad to say.

[misanthrope]

5. What an ass!...

...I hope this prick gets blackballed for the rest of his pretentious life.

Actually, I wish he had done this in my town. I'm the arts editor for our local alternative newspaper and I could have had a heyday in my column with this waste of carbon.

[jmowreader]

7. Is there some kind of connection between Kansas and millipedes?

$450,000 for a bronze millipede? Sounds like one of the UGLIEST fucking things ever to be called art.

No, I take that back. There is one uglier, and it's right here in Fayettenam. We the People held a Festival of Flight in 2003 (the dumbasses who set it up said all these people from all over the country would come to it, and it really WAS pretty good, but they scheduled it for the second-to-last week of the school year and then wondered why no one from out of area flocked to it. Well, that and it was in Fayetteville which AIN'T exactly the number one tourist destination in the nation) and commissioned an Art Piece for downtown which is still there. It looks like an air-to-air missile suspended on a cable over the middle of the street.

[Raine]

8. Assholes like him

make me sick! :puke:

[Swamp Rat]

9. Blow up frogs and you can become president