The aptly described “concrete and metal thing near the giant logs” is in fact a now decommissioned pizza oven owned by artist and Pomona art professor Michael O’Malley. It sits in presentation outside the first floor workshops of the Studio Art Hall in a partially deconstructed form.
This pizza oven is one of his many ovens. According to incomplete statistics, Michael O'Malley's oven practice also took place in Parsons Hall Project Space (Holly York, Massachusetts), Summer Jubilee at the Walker Art Center with Machine Project (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and A Field Guide to LACMA with Machine Project (Los Angeles, California). The most special one is undoubtedly the mobile oven called MOMO, which now travels to all sorts of events across southern California.
Why is Michael O’Malley so interested in building an oven? We can find out from his interview. According to the video called "Andre, you forgot about the fire," Michael became interested in dough while living in Spain and decided to learn how to make it himself. He expressed his love for the practice of making bread and pizza because he felt it was good to build on the knowledge he has. From Michael's perspective, making bread and making art are very similar—that is, having conversation and celebration with the world we live in. He encourages people to think clearly about what kind of world they want to live in and make it. Besides, he believes these oven projects can help him express his views on the environment and consumerism. He admitted that his current lifestyle of just going to the supermarket shelves to get whatever he needs is not what he likes. Therefore, compared to the appetite that pizza and bread can satisfy, he appreciates what pizza represents in a world that is basically fast, cheap, and disposable.
Let’s return to this immovable brick-built oven located on the first floor of the Pomona College studio art building. The exterior of the oven is wrapped in thick cotton fiberglass insulation and a honeycomb wire mesh (don’t touch the insulation, it’s toxic and can irritate your skin really bad!). Since this oven was built in 2017, it’s been long since retired and the space where the pizza should have been is now filled with bricks. The value of this oven is different before and after retirement. While it is still used in the pizza making process, it is a counterpoint to consumerism and a representation of Michael's dream lifestyle and world. After it ceased to be used, it became a history of practice, a sculpture full of nature, and a client.
As for the future of this oven, it may be placed next to the giant logs forever, it may be destroyed in an earthquake, or it may be put back into use. Thousands of years later, it may become an archaeological sculpture and a historical document that explores the thoughts and practices of artists in the 21st century.