DESCRIPTION.

The sculpture is from the United States by the American artist Claire Falkenstein. The work has been given the title Point as a Set No. 25. Falkenstein created the artwork in 1970. The medium is copper tubing. The piece measures 74 in. (188 cm) in diameter. Point as a Set No. 25 was a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Spitzer. The sculpture, part of the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden at the University of California, Los Angeles, or UCLA, permanently resides on a concrete base in front of the Meyer and Renee Luskin School of Public Affairs.

In Point as a Set No. 25, we find many short U-shaped copper tubes assembled into a larger whole. While the information on the number of copper tubes is unavailable, an educated guesstimate is well over 100 individual pieces. The tubes are stacked on top of each other to create the overall circumference, or roundness, of the sculpture. The sculpture resembles a giant metal ball similar in size to two refrigerators standing side by side. The copper juts out of the ball in sharp and energetic gestures, giving the impression of a gigantic thorny tumbleweed.

The concrete base underneath the sculpture is oval-shaped with a length of 90 in. (228.6 cm), a width of 80 in. (203.2 cm), and a height of 6 1/2 in. (16.51 cm). There is a 5-by-7 in. (12.7-by-17.78 cm) bronze plaque affixed to the ground with concrete. It is 24 in. (60.96 cm) in front of the sculpture’s concrete base.

The plaque reads:

“POINT AS A SET, NO. 25, 1970

CLAIRE FALKENSTEIN, AMERICAN 1908–1997

GIFT OF MR. AND MRS. ARTHUR SPITZER, 1970”

The work does not have an orientation and can be experienced at any angle. To explore the work, you can circumnavigate the ball in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. By tracing this path around Point as a Set No. 25, you will get a better sense of the size and how the artist uses space to suggest fluidity and movement.