Penn Students Pee on a Sculpture
As they await further word on *allegedly* libidinous Admissions Dean Lee Stetson's departure, the playful scribes at the Daily Pennsylvanian are venturing into more frivolous subject matters. Yesterday's edition featured an unusually long feature about shitfaced freshmen pissing on one of the school's 432,542 Benjamin Franklin memorials (right). It's a little bit amazing.
Erotic peeing after the jump.
DP reporter Jessica Sidman (full disclosure: she used to work for me at the DP's 34th Street Magazine) detailed a bunch of obnoxious Penn students engaging in R. Kelly-like pee sex with a Ben Franklin bronze situated on a campus bench. I stress the term pee sex, because those who pee on the idle Founding Father like to make it intimate:
Minutes later, a College sophomore who wished to remain anonymous, jumps atop "Ben on the Bench." Urine splashes from the top of Franklin's head, then trickles down the side of his bronze body.
The sophomore jumps down and raises his arms triumphantly in the air.
Awesome! Peeing on a sculpture on a late Saturday night is totally better than having sex on a late Saturday night!
Buried within this whimsical feature, however, is a tragic glimpse of the tortured artist watching his objet d'art... you know... get pissed on.
But there's nothing artistic about what's going on at Penn, says George Lundeen, the Colorado sculptor commissioned to create "Ben on the Bench."
"It's embarrassing to me as an artist to have that happen, and it should be embarrassing to anyone at the University of Pennsylvania to have that happen," he said.
Nah, it's not embarrassing to anyone else. Just you. Because your sculpture gets peed on.
Actually, nevermind--one DP commenter is on Lundeen's side in a big way:
Josh, posted 9/19/07 @ 11:35 AM EST
Ben Franklin was not only the founder of Penn; he was a founding father of our country. The desecration of his statue is an affront to everything he stood for and everything he helped to create. Being a student at Penn is a privilege, not a right. If young people don't have enough respect for the institution, or the proper up bringing to know this behavior is unacceptable, may be they shouldn't be there at all. I'm hard pressed to think of any other simple act that warrants immediate expulsion from the University.
I suggest a new Penn tradition: Pee on Josh.
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September 20th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Wait, so because Josh advocates not urinating on a sculpture of one of the founding fathers of this country we should pee on him? Seriously?
September 20th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
re:Kane-you’re an idiot
1) OK, not very classy of the Penn kids
2) Public urination gets people in trouble at every college campus
3) I still don’t get the “sex” part and I find the description misleading
4) Josh is a tool
5) Public art being abused by the public happens (this is oddly reminiscent of an earlier Ivygate story [link, please] about kids pissing on a Harvard statue). If you wanted this statue treated with your own special kind of reverence, George Lundeen, perhaps you should have asked Penn to include barriers to your work to prevent the public from accessing it, or maybe an armed guard should be posted at all times. Maybe you should never let the public see or interact with your work. Otherwise, just let it slide and realize that Penn owns your work and that they can do to it whatever they wish…melt it down into pennies or allow their students to piss on it or whatever…
September 20th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
I wasn’t really defending Josh, just saying takin a piss on him seems a little extreme. But hey, I guess that makes me an idiot cuz I don’t like pissin on people.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
How terrible! No one at Harvard would *ever* piss on the John Harvard statue. What blasphemy! It’s definitely *not* on the list of things every student should do before they graduate. I mean, really.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
@H: yep, that function is taken on by the visitors :)
September 20th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Fuck Harvard. How can you possibly take seriously an institution that produces people like Lena Chen of sexandtheivy.com? What a fucking joke. I was at Harvard last weekend and I fucking pissed ALL over the John Harvard statue. Last night, while I was pissing on the Ben Franklin statue, he got a call from the John Harvard statue during which they discussed the latest urine trails/tales. I’m peeing as I’m writing this.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
PS In case you couldn’t tell, I’m still bitter from being rejected by Harvard.
PPS Someone told me peeing on statues will make my tiny penis grow.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
I just hope they wash the statue before the next wave of proud parents/tourists snuggle up for the photo op.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
They just needed to TASE THE DAMN JERK BRO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 20th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
wow, are we the only ivy without some kind of statue-pissing tradition?
September 20th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
No, I think Penn and harvard are the only ivies who do that. At Yale, euro-trash students piss on Americans; at Columbia, Barnard girls piss on people’s parades; at Cornell, students piss into the gorges; and, at Dartmouth, students piss on themselves after they pass out in the corner. Princeton students don’t piss, they excrete and are ashamed of it.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Jesus Christ, who HASN’T pissed on the statue of John Harvard at some point or another?
September 20th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
At Columbia all the statues are on pedestals 4-5 feet off the ground. This not only prevents the hobos from peeing on them, but also stops drunks.
That and I’d be too scared to pee on Alma Mater. She looks like she’s whoop your ass.
September 21st, 2007 at 10:57 am
The best part of that DP article was the last line about kids visiting Penn and kissing Ben on the cheek.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
There are infinite possibilties when it comes to bronze patinas. Just remember that it is a chemical oxidation process and the final result will depend on the interaction of all elements involved including those in the metal alloy, water used, atmoshperic conditions as well as the store bought chemicals used. It seems there are always some variation in patina colors no matter how consistent the formula. The unintended ‘happy accident’ can sometimes yield beautiful results. Basically anything that oxidizes the metal will create a patina, generally a salt or an acid. If you are just starting out or on a low budget you might try experimenting with more low tech methods such as burying in the ground or heating and applying different easy to get chemicals which are salt or acid based. The story goes that Roman soldiers used to create dazzling patinas on their breastplate armor by placing them in the campfire and urinating on them (acid and salt). Picasso was also said to have done the same and would encourage his children to urinate on his sculpture.
Be bold, be creative, be careful!
Oh yeah, wash your hands afterwards.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
There are infinite possibilties when it comes to bronze patinas. Just remember that it is a chemical oxidation process and the final result will depend on the interaction of all elements involved including those in the metal alloy, water used, atmoshperic conditions as well as the store bought chemicals used. It seems there are always some variation in patina colors no matter how consistent the formula. The unintended ‘happy accident’ can sometimes yield beautiful results. Basically anything that oxidizes the metal will create a patina, generally a salt or an acid. If you are just starting out or on a low budget you might try experimenting with more low tech methods such as burying in the ground or heating and applying different easy to get chemicals which are salt or acid based. The story goes that Roman soldiers used to create dazzling patinas on their breastplate armor by placing them in the campfire and urinating on them (acid and salt). Picasso was also said to have done the same and would encourage his children to urinate on his sculpture.
Be bold, be creative, be careful!
Oh yeah, wash your hands afterwards.
February 9th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
There are infinite possibilties when it comes to bronze patinas. Just remember that it is a chemical oxidation process and the final result will depend on the interaction of all elements involved including those in the metal alloy, water used, atmoshperic conditions as well as the store bought chemicals used. It seems there are always some variation in patina colors no matter how consistent the formula. The unintended ‘happy accident’ can sometimes yield beautiful results. Basically anything that oxidizes the metal will create a patina, generally a salt or an acid. If you are just starting out or on a low budget you might try experimenting with more low tech methods such as burying in the ground or heating and applying different easy to get chemicals which are salt or acid based. The story goes that Roman soldiers used to create dazzling patinas on their breastplate armor by placing them in the campfire and urinating on them (acid and salt). Picasso was also said to have done the same and would encourage his children to urinate on his sculpture.
Be bold, be creative, be careful!
Oh yeah, wash your hands afterwards.