In the 1970s, Cincinnati’s Patricia Renick was one of a generation of women sculptors who came into their own as wildly influential artists who broadened the possibilities of what sculpture and art could look like. It could even look a cross between a Stegosaurus and a Volkswagen, as one of her most famous monumental sculptures, 1974’s “Stegowagenvolkssaurus,” or “Stego” for short, in fact did.
Since Renick passed away in 2007, Laura Chapman — her longtime companion and executor of her estate — has begun to find places for some of the enormous and historically significant sculptures that Renick made in her lifetime. This Friday, at a gala event from 5-7 p.m., “Stego” will be reintroduced to the public — after being restored — on the third floor of Northern Kentucky University’s W. Frank Steely Library. The work is on long-term loan to NKU.
“Stego” is a 12-by-20-foot hybrid that attaches the body of an adult Stegosaurus dinosaur around a Volkswagen car. In her artist statement, Renick explained that her creation — made from a car widely regarded as fuel-efficient — “is a commentary on the possible fate of the automobile in a society unwilling to give up some individual freedom of movement in order to conserve energy resources. As a consequence, even the fuel-efficient automobiles of the future may become as obsolete as the Stegosaurus of the past.”
Read more about Renick and her masterpiece here.
