Students cover sculpture in front of the Chase Fine Arts Center

 The “Force of the Morning” sculpture in front of the northeast entrance of the Chase Fine Arts Center at Utah State University is gaining more attention from pedestrians. The two black granite pieces are now covered with white cloths. On one, a sign with the words “Closed Sorry for the inconvenience” hangs from a chord that keeps the cloth in place.

Students attending Ryoichi Suzuki’s basic sculpture class in the arts center covered the artwork during the first week of November.

According to Suzuki, it was a group project in which students had to install a sculpture that was visually appealing. He said the projects could have a conceptual twist if the group chose to do so.

Brandon Christensen, the student whose idea it was to wrap the sculpture, said he looked at projects from previous years, and most were done for the visual aspect.

“I wanted to do something that was more just an idea,” Christensen said. “That would have people thinking ‘Why? Why did they wrap that?’”

Christensen said he got the idea for wrapping the sculpture when the government shut down in October. During that time, nationally funded museums, including the Smithsonian, closed.

By the time the sculptures were wrapped—with permission from the sculptor, Dan Kainz—the government shutdown had already ended.

“But there’s still a point to be made,” Christensen said. “I think that when you shut something down or when you lose something, that’s when you start to appreciate it.”

Christensen said he thinks more people have noticed the sculpture now that it is covered, and some have expressed curiosity as to what it will look like when it is uncovered.

“Essentially, that’s what we were going for,” Christensen said. “It’s just to get people thinking or looking or being curious.”

Steven Catalino, a student who covered the sculpture with Christensen, said the project took seven to eight hours to complete.

“You can’t just put the cloth on,” Catalino said. “It won’t work. You need to adjust it to make it more visually appealing.”

“It took them many attempts to do it,” Suzuki said. “Another criteria was it has to be able to stand the weather because it gets windy, and if they didn’t do a good job, the wrap would come undone.”

According to Suzuki, the sculpture will be uncovered when the semester ends in December.