Walking to the Sky

Walking to the Sky is a landmark public sculpture by Jonathan Borofsky. The original was installed at Rockefeller Center in the fall of 2004 before being moved to the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas in 2005. A copy is installed on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.

The seven-ton work of art depicts a little girl, a businesswoman, a young man, and several others scaling a soaring 100-foot-tall stainless steel pole. Three people are looking upward from the base of the pole, which points to the east at a 75-degree angle.

The piece was inspired by a story that Borofsky's father used to tell him when he was a child about a friendly giant who lived in the sky. In each tale, father and son would travel up to the sky to talk to the giant about what needed to be done for everyone back on earth. The artist says the sculpture is "a celebration of the human potential for discovering who we are and where we need to go."

Carnegie Mellon installed "Walking to the Sky" in May 2006 on its campus in front of Warner Hall just off Forbes Avenue. The sculpture was a gift from CMU Trustee Jill Gansman Kraus (A'74) and her husband, Peter Kraus, of New York City. The sculpture generated controversy among the student body for its appearance, the choice of location, and the lack of campus involvement in selecting and siting the piece. The campus newspaper described it as "an eyesore" and "vaguely phallic" while others have expressed displeasure at its location as one of the first things seen of the campus from Forbes Avenue.

Borofsky earned his B.A. in fine arts from Carnegie Mellon in 1964 and an honorary doctorate in fine arts in 2006. Other Borofsky sculptures that have become landmarks in their respective cities, include the 100-foot-tall "Molecule Man" in Berlin, Germany's Spree River; the 70-foot-tall "Hammering Man" in Frankfurt, Germany; and the 80-foot-tall "Woman Walking to the Sky" in Strasbourg, France.

External links

* [http://www.borofsky.com/ Sculptor Jonathan Borofsky's website]

References

*Patricia Lowry (2006). [http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06074/670237-42.stm "Walking to the Sky" sculpture installation: story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette] . Retrieved May 13, 2007.
*Nasher Sculpture Center. [http://nashersculpturecenter.org/index.cfm?FuseAction=Object&ObjectID=1347 "Walking to the Sky" piece description at the Nasher Sculpture Center] . Retrieved August 29, 2007.
* Brittany McCandless (2006). [http://www.thetartan.org/2006/3/27/news/public_art_forum Public art forum discusses campus placement of two new sculptures] . Retrieved August 29, 2007.