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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

arts

Showalter Fountain a traditional target of vandalism

The rioting crowd that surrounded Showalter Fountain Sunday not only tore the bronze fish from their moorings, but dismantled the last remaining original sculpture.\nKathy Foster, curator of 19th and 20th century art at IU, reacted with dismay. \n"I just groaned," she said. "I knew we didn't have any spare fish."\nThe fountain was commissioned in the early 1950s by Herman B Wells, then University president and was designed and created by Robert Laurent, then resident professor of sculpture. Laurent fashioned the six bronze sculptures in Rome during his time as resident sculptor at the American Academy, and they were shipped by air to Bloomington in 1958.\nSherry Rouse, curator of campus art, is responsible for Showalter Fountain and other fountains, sculptures and art not inside the IU Art Museum. Rouse said all of the fish were tampered with Sunday; four were torn from their mountings, and one was still attached, but bent below the water. This would have involved continuously bending the fish back and forth until the bronze actually cracked off, she said.\n"I was sick," she said of discovering the damage. "It is a shame that something this important to the University has been damaged. It's just shocking."\nOriginally, the design for the fountain included a flat, trophy-like fish as the centerpiece above the reclining Venus figure. But after some consideration, the committee, which included Wells, decided to replace that fish with a more animated, leaping fish. The original flat fish was kept in storage, and two new leaping dolphins were cast, one for the fountain and "an extra in case of mistakes," Foster said.\nNot long after the fountain was completed, the first bronze dolphin was swiped during festivities surrounding a basketball championship, Foster said. "These fish have been targets for merrymakers over the years," she said. It was replaced by the extra leaping fish.\nIn 1987, the last time IU basketball won an NCAA national championship, the second leaping fish was stolen, and it was replaced by the flat fish called for in the original design.\nAfter this incident, Rouse headed up an effort to recover the two leaping bronze fish. An article about the fish appeared in the IDS, the thieves to return them, no questions asked.\n"We're secretly hoping that (the fish) are in some fraternity party room with Christmas lights on them," Foster said. "We just hope they come home again."\n"We are missing two fish," Rouse said. "It's hard to believe that someone would have a 350-pound bronze fish lying around the house and not realize it."\nRouse and Foster both expressed dismay that, for the third time in its history, the Showalter Fountain has been damaged, this time by rioting Knight fans.\n"I think that Bobby Knight would not be pleased at having this done in his name," Foster said. "It's malicious. The fountain is a symbolically powerful place on campus. We need to make people wake up to its historic and artistic importance."\nRouse is working on getting financial help to restore the fountain. She said she has no estimate on what the restoration will cost, but that it will be "an expensive project." In addition to remounting the fish, she said she expects to do some conservation work on the sculptures while they are dismounted, and guessed the plumbing in the fountain is damaged and will need repair, she said.

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