Horseplay in Georgia

When Chicago Sculptor Abbott Pattison got a commission to do four pieces of sculpture for the University of Georgia, he saw an opportunity to bring a touch of modernism to the sleepy, oak-shaded old campus. Pattison moved to Athens as sculptor in residence, last year put up his first work, a sharp-edged abstraction in marble. Somebody poured a can of green paint over it.

Last week, in front of a freshman dormitory, up went Pattison's second piece of campus sculpture: a gaunt and gawky 11-foot welded-steel abstraction of a horse. Student reaction was immediate--and violent. Within a few hours hay was stuffed into the horse's mouth, manure was piled under its rear end, balloons and confetti were attached to the exposed steel ribs. Three times during the night, students built bonfires under the sculpture, succeeded only in scorching the paint.

Next day university authorities took the horse down, carted it away to a place of safekeeping, and student tempers calmed. Pattison's did not. Said he: "It's degrading to have that happen to anyone's idea . . . The university took quite a courageous step in . . . having me come down here and work in the first place . . . Now I think their action in taking the horse down and hiding it is cowardly . . . I feel terrible." But Pattison decided to keep right on trying. Said he: "I'm not going to be chased out of this by any means."

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