Last week a new statue graced the University of Oklahoma with its presence, but it didn't receive a warm welcome by some students of the university. Honestly, when I first saw it I thought it was some sort of prank from our football team's biggest rivalry, The University of Texas. I was pretty annoyed because I didn't think that UT fans could be so petty after winning the game by a field goal.

The statue also doesn't depict anything relevant to the University of Oklahoma as far as I can tell. If the founding of the university was in the 1830s or 1840s it would be understandable to have this statue but the University of Oklahoma was founded in 1890. Is this statue trying to reference Manifest Destiny? Or is it trying to reference the Trail of Tears? The school was established long after Manifest Destiny which triggered migration to the western region of the United States and was also after the oppression of Native Americans which forced them away from their sacred homeland and on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. There hasn't been any explanation for why the statue made its way behind Gaylord College and right in front of the busiest area on game days.

The statue is named "Covered Wagon" by artist Tom Otterness and depicts a cartoonish looking bull wearing boots pulling a wagon with a cartoonish looking woman sitting in the wagon. The statue was originally commissioned to go to Walla Walla, Washington.

GET READY FOR THIS SMOLDERING HOT TEA ON THE ARTIST!!!!

He adopted a dog from an animal shelter, tied it up, shot the dog, and filmed it. Then called it "art." This has caused an absolutely justified uproar from OU students since the OU daily posted an article about this. The fact that anyone would want this man's art is just shocking and it doesn't represent any of the values of the University of Oklahoma or the students who attend it.

This statue doesn't go along with any other statue on campus. Most of the other statues on campus have a darker bronze finish to them, whereas this statue has a more gold look to it. Other statues on campus also have a more realistic look to them as opposed to something that looks like it came from a little kid. (No offense to the artist but it's true.) The color sticks out, the cartoonish look stands out, and I personally am just not a fan.

Some of my friends think that the statue was put there because of high traffic on game days and will convince more people to bring their kids to game days but that logic doesn't necessarily make sense to me. I doubt that people would be more likely to bring their kids to game days just to see this new (kind of ugly and out of place) statue.

I don't really understand the placement of the statue itself. The university has many different campuses across Oklahoma that this art could have gone to. The statue's cartoonish look would be a little better received at the University of Oklahoma Children's Hospital, or maybe in front of or behind the Education building on the Norman Campus.

That would make a little bit more sense considering the look of the statue and the more childish aesthetic. The students who go to school at OU are generally (*cough* almost always *cough*) over the age of 18 and it doesn't make a lot of sense to have something that looks so childish at a place of higher education with one of the most strict integrity programs in the country. It would look better placed at maybe an elementary school or maybe middle school but a highly esteemed university? I don't think so.