The Man in the Middle

There is a work of art I have been enjoying at Penn State that exists in two parts, which are displayed just as you see above. They are located between the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center and Pattee Library on the University Park campus. I thought it looked pretty neat in monochrome, with the snow.

I am sorry to admit that I don't know the name of this display, or exactly what it means. (If I find out, I'll come back and add that.) But I enjoy it a lot, even without knowing who made it or why.

If you stand right where I stood, looking down toward the libraries, this was my view: the cut-out figure in front of me; the figure with a hole in its heart, just below. It reminded me of the man in the middle, from that Bowie song.

The soundtrack: David Bowie, with Man in the Middle.

Update: I discovered the name of this work of art. It is called Hiroshima: The Unkillable Human. I've copied a bit of text below from a website where you can learn a bit more about this work. I believe these may be the words of the artist, Frederick Franck.

After I saw in Hiroshima, burned into a concrete wall, a human shadow the moment the Bomb struck, I was haunted by it.

Returned home, I took a steel plate, and with a blowtorch cut out the contour of this volatilized fellow human. When the outline was complete, the human form dropped out, leaving a gaping hole surrounded by frames of steel.

I placed both components so that through the empty negative the HUMAN IMAGE can be seen rising, like a phoenix from its ashes:

RESURRECTION!