Field of Giant Corn Cobs

Dublin, Ohio

It's supposed to be ironic, this former corn field, now sprouting 109 people-sized ears of concrete corn in a large oddball art display. But it's also a salute to Sam Frantz, an inventor of hybrid corns, and a very weird sight along the highway.

Frantz farmed this site from 1935 to 1963, using it as as a study field for tasty mutant strains. Frantz was "well known for his development of hybrid corn seeds," and worked with Ohio State University on hybridization projects. He donated this land, now named Sam and Eulalia Frantz Park, after its farming days were over.

An Ohio artist, Malcolm Cochran, was brought in by the Dublin Arts Council to create the environment of corn. He completed the artwork -- which he named "Field of Corn" -- on October 30, 1994. A row of old Osage Orange Trees anchors the west side of the park, where you'll find signs explaining hybridization and describing the project.

Three different molds were used to create the concrete ears of corn, and each ear faces a different direction so that they all look a little different. The variety Cochran used was a "double-cross hybrid called Corn Belt Dent Corn." Cochran arranged the white corn ears in neat rows, inspired by the identical white tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery. The artwork, he said, was meant to symbolize "the death of agriculture" in the face of suburban sprawl. The field is indeed surrounded by corporate offices, bland businesses, and suburban neighborhoods.

Field of Corn instantly became a joke: giant, inedible food, paid for with tax dollars. But time softened those bad feelings, and Ohio now promotes Field of Corn as one of its top public artworks. Happily oblivious to its serious intent, people like to stand in the concrete corn field and take photos of themselves.