Stinger: The Newest Addition to Arts on the Point

By Wendy Baring-Gould

On the clear, bright morning of April 25, two flatbed trucks arrived on campus carrying the four black metal sections of Tony Smith’s “Stinger.” Within five hours, the 36,000-pound sculpture had been gently lowered into place at its new site beside Boston Harbor, slightly beyond the elliptical drive to the new Campus Center where it hugs the ground, hovering, bold and magical.

Smith, born in 1912, trained and worked as a architect until 1961, when he shifted his career path and began to create bold, spare, minimalist sculpture as a way to explore and refine the use of geometric form as a pure design element. “Stinger,” conceived in 1967, was first constructed in 1968 in plywood in Smith’s spacious back yard at his home in New Jersey. The piece was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and later with other work of this period at various locations in Europe. In 1999, 20 years after the artist’s death, the piece was fabricated in steel and shown at the Paula Coopers Gallery in New York. Its installation here is the second time the piece has been exhibited.

In creating “Stinger,” Smith was interested in the viewer’s experience of entering the sculpture’s negative space as providing an opportunity for both a physical and a spiritual passage. His original title for the piece, “One Bad Gate,” reflected this thinking but was changed after the piece had actually been constructed. At that time, he decided to call the piece “Stinger,” because its shape reminded him of the effect of a sweet, potent alcoholic drink, popular at the time, which, as he said “comes around to nip you in the back of the neck.”

Two years ago, the prospect of this piece coming to campus was met with resistance by many of the university’s immediate neighbors. “Its installation in the current location marks a turning point for the project and is tangible evidence of the positive, collaborative relationship we have worked to develop within our neighboring communities,” commented Paul Tucker, director of Arts on the Point.

Those times were a catalyst for positive change. As a result, Arts on the Point is working effectively with members of a committed Advisory Board to create a series of educational and community outreach programs which occur both on and off campus. These programs are designed to contribute significantly to UMass Boston’s urban mission and to achieve the original goals of the sculpture park while building lasting, effective partnerships with neighborhood groups and community institutions.

Stinger is located in front of the new campus center between the perimeter road and the harbor walk. (Photo by Harry Brett)

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