Pat Foster and Jen Berean

Pat Foster and Jen Berean’s Unity and Fragments (A Brief Interruption) considered the implications of the built environment and our daily interaction with art and architecture in public spaces. Referencing the architectural forms and materials common to public furniture, the five-part stainless steel and glass sculptures continued the artists’ investigations into the hidden systems that make up the sites and infrastructures that surround us.

Unity and Fragments (A Brief Interruption) was Foster and Berean’s first outdoor artwork. It took the form of a long, waist-height fence that snaked its way diagonally across the Ian Potter Sculpture Court, bisecting public seating and otherwise fragmenting sections of the public plaza.

Instead of drawing attention to its materials and scale, like other more spectacular public artworks, Unity and Fragments (A Brief Interruption) was almost imperceptible, blending into the material and architectural environs of the university at a human scale. Nevertheless, by subtly impeding movement through the courtyard, it referenced Richard Serra’s infamous Tilted Arc of 1981.

^{Photo: Jen Berean}