Tuning Fork

New on deviantART

Original stereoscopic photograph shot May 30, 2012 using a 1954 David White Stereo Realist camera and Ilford XP2 Super 400 C41 film.

The sculpture is "Unititled (Tuning Fork)", Gerhard Class, 1968 (corten steel, 700 cm)

Located in front of the main entrance to the Music Building, Alfred Blundell donated this sculpture to UBC in 1968; the design was selected by jury in a closed competition. Class created the work specifically for this site in UBC’s Arts precinct, where students study music, fine art, theatre and architecture. The sculpture’s two free-standing forms complement one other and articulate the close relationship between the Arts. Class envisioned that Tuning Fork would dominate the plaza and rise above the horizontal line of the covered walkway, which connects the buildings in the precinct.

The artist fabricated the sculpture in corten steel, anticipating the deep rust colour that it would eventually turn. The work presents different configurations depending on the position of the viewer, and the twisting forms seem to suggest a dance. Musicians will also recognize this form as an abstracted tuning fork, a two-pronged tool made of steel, which resonates at a constant pitch when struck. Class intended the work to bring to mind “a giant tuning fork large enough to have served Pythagorus and his theory of music and the harmony of the spheres” (artist statement, 1967). [view deviation]