KINGSTON, R.I. – October 3, 2011 – Celebrated artist Cliff Garten will present a lecture at the University of Rhode Island on Oct. 12 about his newest sculpture, Schooling, which was recently installed in the lobby of the University’s Ocean Science and Exploration Center.

His lecture will begin at 3:30 p.m. in the Main Gallery of the URI Fine Arts Center, 105 Upper College Road, Kingston. A reception will follow at 5 p.m. in the lobby of the Ocean Science and Exploration Center, 15 Pier Road, Narragansett, on the URI Bay Campus.

Garten has produced more than 50 sculptures throughout the U.S. and Canada in collaboration with significant architecture, landscape architecture and engineering projects. He is best known for exploring the expressive potential of infrastructure.

Composed of abstract forms that reference the hull of an ocean vessel or the body of a fish, Schooling takes inspiration from its orientation in the Graduate School of Oceanography’s main atrium space opposite Narragansett Bay. Comprised of four separate forms, the sculpture’s layered forms repeat and aggregate into a wedge-like massing of more than two hundred individual sculptures evoking the schooling habits of fish. Each individual form is semitransparent to evoke the shimmering and diaphanous quality of ocean life.

Schooling was commissioned by URI and the Rhode Island Council on the Arts through the Allocation for Art for Public Facilities Act, which recognizes that art in public places creates a more humane environment. Garten was selected from a national field of artists for creating evocative and seamless site-specific sculpture.

For more information about Garten, visit www.cliffgartenstudio.com.