The “Center of the Universe,” despite what some physicists might say, is right next to Ortega Hall.
Bruce Nauman’s abstract, conceptual art piece installation began in 1986 at the center of controversy. Even today, reactions to the piece are mixed.
Sculpture professor Steve Barry said people look too deeply for the piece’s meaning and past an obvious one.
“If you think about your experience of the world and then you try to locate the center of the universe, phenomenologically where else could it be located?” he said. “You, as a point of reference, it’s your only option. It’s not egotistical. It’s just, where else could it be but with you? You experience yourself as the center of the universe.”
Nauman, despite several attempts to reach him, was unavailable for comment. But in, “Only in New Mexico: An Architectural History of the University of New Mexico,” by Van Dorn Hooker, Melissa Howard and V.B. Price, he described the piece as an arbitrary marker of the center of the universe.
“I didn’t think of the title until I started working on it,” he said. “Nobody knows where the center of the universe is, anyways. This piece takes you out of this place and puts you where the center might be. It puts you into the huge scale of the universe, which is, after all, an interior space — you can only imagine it.”
Given all the acclaim and criticism, it seems appropriate that “The Center of the Universe” was not the artist’s first design. Nauman intended to sculpt a piece called “Abstract Stadium,” but the Campus Planning Committee was so averse to the design that it refused to approve it. Nauman declined to consider creating another design for the plaza, but later agreed to design the sculpture between Mitchell Hall and Ortega Hall.
As it stands today, the structure extends in five directions and meets at right angles, implying a coordinate system. The grate in the center acts as the hypothetical center of the universe.
Sculpture professor Ellen Babcock said being designated in that position is akin to being trapped. She said the experience makes her feel insignificant.
“I am caught in coordinates, stuck like a bug in amber and visible from all sides, maybe witnessed only by rats from below or birds from above — but strangely and singularly visible and absolutely unimportant,” she said. “It makes me want to scurry off with my own personal center of the universe to somewhere more comfortable and rightly sized.”
Barry said viewers’ appreciation of the piece depends on their openness to modern artistic expression. He said Nauman’s communication method is similar to dolphins’ — they’re communicating, just not in the way humans are used to.
“We might not see something that looks like a concrete bunker as beautiful per se, so we might have expectations of there being a narrative or a story that’s going to be told or illustrated,” he said.
“Or they might be looking for some expressive quality that will make them feel like they’re in the presence of some emotional state or some other transcendental communication.”
Biology professor Bill Gannon said the artist used too much concrete when constructing the art piece.
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“I avoid it,” he said. “I don’t see the artistic aspects of it. Conceptually, I guess it’s some sort of connection between heaven and earth. However, using that much concrete seems to take away the universality of it for me.”
Student Jennifer Raikes said she’s never thought about the piece, but appreciates the campus’ public art.
“I think all of the art adds something to the campus,” she said. “Obviously, it’s aesthetically pleasing.”
The piece doesn’t guide viewers toward an exact interpretation but still serves as a representation of modern art on campus, one that Babcock said, above all, inspires thoughts of one’s place in this world.
“On those hot spring afternoons, it can be a moment of pleasure to ride a bike through the cool dark tunnel, passing the guitarist with his reverberating tune, but that is not the reason I am glad it’s there,” she said. “It’s because there is a momentary thrill to standing on the plaque, to that moment of realization that I am just a speck, precisely located not only by the experience of existing.”
