page_title: University of California, San Diego
section_title: Public art
hierarchical_section_title: University of California, San Diego / Campus / Public art
caption_attribution_description: Snake Path, UCSD
context_page_description: The University of California, San Diego is a public research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, and offers over 200 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, enrolling approximately 30,800 undergraduate and 8,000 graduate students. The university occupies 2,141 acres near the coast of the Pacific Ocean, with the main campus resting on approximately 1,152 acres.
  UC San Diego is organized into seven undergraduate residential colleges, four academic divisions, and seven graduate and professional schools. UC San Diego Health, the region's only academic health system, provides patient care, conducts medical research and educates future health care professionals at the UC San Diego Medical Center, Hillcrest, Jacobs Medical Center, Moores Cancer Center, Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center, Shiley Eye Institute, Institute for Genomic Medicine, Koman Family Outpatient Pavilion and various express care and urgent care clinics throughout San Diego.
context_section_description: More than a dozen public art projects, part of the Stuart Collection, decorate the campus. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Sun God, a large winged creature located near the Faculty Club. Other collection pieces include a collection of Stonehenge-like stone blocks, a house sitting atop an engineering building in Warren College called Fallen Star, a table by Jenny Holzer, a building that flashes the names of vices and virtues in bright neon lights, and three metallic Eucalyptus trees.
  The collection also includes a large coiling snake path whose head guides towards Geisel Library, with a quote from John Milton's Paradise Lost carved along its length: "And wilt thou not be loath to leave this Paradise, but shalt possess a Paradise within thee, happier far." The path circles around its own garden and a large granite book-shaped block. One of the newest additions to the collection is Tim Hawkinson's giant teddy bear made of six boulders located in between the newly constructed Calit2 buildings. Another notable campus sight was the graffiti staircase of Mandeville Hall, a series of corridors that had been tagged with graffiti by generations of students over decades of use; this was recently replaced with the Graffiti Art Park. Students in the university's visual arts department also create temporary public art installations as part of their coursework. The university is sponsoring a $56,000 performance art project to develop a sense of community at the sprawling campus.
  Shepard Fairey, most notable for his Barack Obama "Hope" poster, painted a mural at the Ché Café, one of UC San Diego's most famous buildings and collectives, on an outside wall facing Scholars Drive, that features the likenesses of Martin Luther King Jr. and other political figures. Underground street artist, Swampy, created a large piece inside the Ché Café, visible through the courtyard depicting his signature mammoth skeleton. Local San Diego artist Mario Torero, in collaboration with university art students, painted a mural at the Café in commemoration of Angela Davis and Rigoberta Menchú, along with other notable political figures. The Ché Café remains a hub for underground and politically progressive artists. Torero was invited back to the university in 2009 to create a mural called "Chicano Legacy" based on content suggested by Chicano students. The mural is a $10,000 digital image on a 15-by-50-foot (4.6 by 15.2 m) canvas mounted on the exterior of Peterson Hall, which includes representations of César Chávez and Dolores Huerta as well as the kiosk structure at Chicano Park. In 2016 a mural entitled "Enduring Spell" was completed by El Mac in the Argo courtyard,
caption: Snake Path, east of Geisel Library.
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