When outdoor sculpture takes its place amidst the architecture and landscape of a college campus, it proclaims a celebration of art to be witnessed by all who walk past it. Susquehanna University has been priviliged to enjoy art in Lore Degenstein Gallery for the last six years, bringing a range of art from traditional landscape paintings to modernist abstraction into the lives of the campus community. Now the gallery joins in the celebration of modernist sculptures that take their place outdoors to proclaim the importance of art entering into campus life. In late March 1999 three large sculptures were installed at Susquehanna, gifts of Muriel and the late Philip I. Berman. The Bermans, of Allentown, Pennsylvania, have been noted collectors of art and benefactors to numerous collge and university campuses. Dr. Muriel Berman offered a gift of three sculptures to the university, thereby beginning an opportunity for art to become a visual presence on campus. The university was granted a selection from among the vast Berman collection of modernist sculpture. The works chosen represent current issues in American sculpture that address aspects of the 20th-century dialogue between realism and abstraction. The artists of the selected works Menashe Kadishman, John Hock, and Glenn Zweygardt, each worked in an idiosyncratic language that explores material and techniques from their artistic milieu. Kadishman's Three Discs, fabricated of construction-grade steel, challenges our sense of gravity as the discs appear to fall over, setting up visual tension engendering the expectation of thier spilling onto the ground. Kadisman, an Israeli artist who has numerous works in major sculpture collections, often toys with his viewers' awareness that steel has an inherent weight and power that is manifest in architecture of the 20th centurey. The surfce of his sculptures bears the marks of the environment--acid raid and environmental pollutants which add rust and color changes to its presentation. John Hock's untitled sculpture traces the history of the twentieth-centure modernism arising from the early 1930's when Pablo Picasso and Julio Gonzalez experimented with found pieces of metal that shared elements of their original shapes with the new forms created by their constructions. Faces and the human figure began to "grow" visually as the sculptures take on new lives in the bringing together of pieces of metal. Hock works in the spirit of these constructivist sculptors, welding building materials and castoff pieces of similar metals together to bring a sort of totemic presence to his work. Glenn Zweygardt seeks primordial essence in his large granite sculpture, entitled Slice II, incorporating the language of monumental, steel construction material with natural, unaltered quarry stone. Creating the illusion of the heavy stone being parted by a triangular blade of steel, Zweygardt sets up an incongruity with our visual belief system and forces a recognition of the affinity between the power of both materials, natural and manmade.   Lore Degenstein Gallery Celebrates Campus Sculpture To complement the campus sculpture while celebrating the Bermans' gift, the Lore Degenstein Gallery has organized an exhibition of works large and small by Glenn Zweygardt. Professor of Sculpture and Head of the Art Department at the College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Zweygardt has had a relationship with the Bermans since the early 1970s when one of his sculptures was purchased by the collectors and given to Temple University. Philip Berman purchased the maquette for his private collection and became aware of other work by Zweygardt through an exhibition catalogue. Desiring to see more, the Bermans drove to Alfred, New York, in a snowstorm to see the originals. After catching view of six sculptures covered with snow, the Bermans decided to purchase them all, hence, the beginning of remarkable years of patronage with the young sculptor. After that initial encounter, Philip bought all Zweygardt's pieces in each subsequent show. Zweygardt's reputation began to develop as the Bermans each year continued to purchase his work which they gave to colleges and universities. The artist was the first contemporary sculptor to have work placed on the campus of Ursinus Collge, a beginning of many benevolences to follow for the college, including the Bermans' establishment of the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art. While Zweygardt's earlier work was constructed metal, in the 1980's his interest in materials changed. He went with Philip to a quarry to see large pieces of granite dynamited and removed from the ground. Berman became fascinated with the possibilities of stone re-emerging in sculptural art with the same profundity as modern steel, its surfaces bearing the marks of the powerful tools that released it from the earth. Setting up a working atelier at the Wentz granite monument works in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Philip provided the means by which Zweygardt could fabricate his new ideas in sculpture. Artists' work often evolves with the serendipity of new encounters, and such was the case with Zweygardt's interest in cast glass. Hiring a new faculty member at Alfred University, Steve Edwards, who worked in a glass casting process, Zweygardt began to introduce "occuli" or windows of solid, sometimes colored glass into his massive stone pieces. His intent for Slice II is to carve an opening into the large slab and place a cast glass "eye" into its surface. The sculpture has been sited to take advantage of the angle of the sun which will stream through the glass at certain times of the day. At this moment, Zweygardt is discussing red as the color of the glass. It is anticipated that in the fall 1999, the artist will provide a demonstration of the process to Susquehanna students as he installs the glass. The gallery exhibition will display several large pieces of Zweygardt's sculpture and a number of smaller maquettes giving the opportunity to show a retrospective collection of work by the artist. It is through the generous spirit of Muriel and Philip Berman that Susquehanna University is able to enjoy the treasures of modern sculpture, adding our name to the list of many Pennsylvania institutions that have been so honored.     Slice II. Glenn Zweygardt. Granite and steel. 1993. 8 x 4 x 4' Collection of Susquehanna University.