''Open End'' is an abstract

public art Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...

sculpture by

Clement Meadmore Clement Meadmore (9 February 1929 – 19 April 2005) was an Australian-American sculptor known for massive outdoor steel sculptures. Biography Born Clement Lyon Meadmore in Melbourne, Australia in 1929, Clement Meadmore studied aeronautical ...

. The , curved metal beam is located on the grounds of St. Xavier High School in

Springfield Township, Hamilton County, Ohio Springfield Township is one of the twelve civil township, townships of Hamilton County, Ohio, Hamilton County, Ohio, United States. The 2010 United States Census, 2010 census found 36,319 people in the township. Springfield Township is home to th ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It was previously located in downtown

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Description

''Open End'' rises out of the ground, bends 90 degrees to run along the horizontal plane, folds back on itself to run in the opposite direction, gently bends to the left while rotating slightly counterclockwise, folds again, and slopes downward toward the pedestal before curling back to point in the same direction as the second fold.

History

In 1984, Linclay Corporation commissioned Meadmore to design a sculpture for the three-story, brick plaza at the corner of Sixth and Vine Streets, in front of the Cincinnati Commerce Center that Linclay was developing. The Commerce Center, later known as the

Convergys Convergys Corporation was a corporation based in Cincinnati, Ohio, that sold customer management and information management products, primarily to large corporations. Customer management products included agent assisted, self-service and care sof ...

Center, was one of several International Style office towers that went up that year. The hollow bronze and steel sculpture was manufactured for $100,000 by the Tallix Foundry in

Beacon, New York Beacon is a city located in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The 2020 census placed the city total population at 13,769. Beacon is part of the Poughkeepsie– Newburgh– Middletown, New York Metropolitan Statistical Area as we ...

, and dedicated in August 1984. Downtown passersby expressed puzzlement at ''Open End''. Meadmore intended the work as "a bridge between the scale of the pedestrians and that of the building". Unfortunately, the scale of the sculpture itself became a problem, as pedestrians frequently injured their heads by walking into its two large prongs. To protect pedestrians, especially the blind, a curb was later built around the perimeter of the installation. In 1992, the

Save Outdoor Sculpture! Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS!) was a community-based effort to identify, document, and conserve outdoor sculpture in the United States. The program was initiated in 1989 and ended in 1999. History Save Outdoor Sculpture! was initiated by Herit ...

project noted gouging and "minimal graffiti" on the sculpture's surface and suspected that water was collecting inside the pedestal. In June 1999,

Prudential Insurance Company Prudential Financial, Inc. is an American Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 500 company whose subsidiaries provide insurance, retirement planning, investment management, and other products and services to both retail and institutional customers thr ...

restored the sculpture and donated it to St. Xavier before remodeling the plaza. ''Open End'' was reinstalled on October 20, 1999, at the Math Wing entrance outside Berning Gymnasium, where it can be seen from West North Bend Road. St. Xavier students have compared the sculpture to

Gumby ''Gumby'' is an American clay animation Media franchise, franchise, centered on the titular green clay humanoid character created and modeled by Art Clokey. Gumby stars in two television series, the feature-length ''Gumby: The Movie'', and oth ...

. Meadmore's

artist's proof An artist's proof is an impression of a print taken in the printmaking process to see the current printing state of a plate while the plate (or stone, or woodblock) is being worked on by the artist. A proof may show a clearly incomplete image, ofte ...

was sold at auction in 2011 to benefit the

Cleveland Play House Cleveland Play House (CPH) is a professional regional theater company located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was founded in 1915 and built its own noted theater complex in 1927. Currently the company performs at the Allen Theatre in Playhouse Square wher ...

References

External links

Photo of the artist's proof
at Clement Meadmore's website {{Public art in Cincinnati 1984 sculptures Bronze sculptures in Ohio Outdoor sculptures in Cincinnati Sculptures by Clement Meadmore St. Xavier High School (Ohio) Steel sculptures in Ohio 1984 establishments in Ohio