Stratosphere Enters the Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection

WICHITA, KANSAS — The Ulrich Museum of Art has acquired Stratosphere by HYBYCOZO as the eighty-sixth work in the Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection. The sculpture was commissioned for the Wichita State University campus and is sited near Wayne and Kay Woolsey Hall.

Stratosphere is a twelve-foot sphere in stainless steel with a gold powder-coated finish. The form follows Buckminsterfullerene, a carbon molecule named for Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic dome it resembles. Fuller developed the Dymaxion House in Wichita in the mid-1940s, making the reference local as well as structural.

The pattern cut into each facet draws on wheat stalks, aircraft, wind motion and the stars of the Kansas state motto. The sculpture is lit from within, and after dark those cuts extend into large shadow patterns across the surrounding ground.

The work was acquired by museum purchase with additional funds from Woolsey Hall.

About HYBYCOZO

Permanent outdoor sculpture for university campuses, museum grounds and civic plazas is the focus of HYBYCOZO, the Los Angeles studio of Serge Beaulieu and Yelena Filipchuk. Its work sits in the Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection at Wichita State University and the collection of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Each sculpture is perforated stainless steel, lit from within so it reads differently by day and by night.