Tilted Donut with S, 2006

Fletcher Benton
2007; Cor-Ten Steel; Sculpture
North Campus; South lawn of Lurie Biomedical Engineering Building

Gift of Engineering Class of 1956. “Building reminiscences of collapse and chaos into his sculptures, Benton helps us see what it is to create formal order: from physical contingency, he builds aesthetic necessity. What keeps Benton’s sculptures alive is his disinclination to let necessity look ponderous. Thus he teases balance with hints of unbalance. He puts the fate of large forms in the hands, so to speak, of much smaller forms. He lets balls roll away from the sculptures to which they belong. He plays sober, weighty blocks off against thin, soaring—even flighty—curves and zigzags. And so he shows us that there is nothing inevitable about sculptural necessity. It must be won from the forces of mundane disorder, and once the victory is achieved, it must be achieved again.” (Carter Ratcliff, excerpt from “The Purpose and Harmony,” © 2003 Carter Ratcliff)