''Spoonbridge and Cherry'' is a sculptural fountain designed by
Claes Oldenburg and
Coosje van Bruggen. It was funded by a $500,000 donation from art collector
Frederick R. Weisman
The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum is an art museum at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1934 as University Gallery, the museum was originally housed in an upper floor of the university's Northrop Auditorium. In 19 ...
and is permanently located in the
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is an park in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States.
It is located near the Walker Art Center, which operates it in coordination with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. It reopened June 10, 2017 af ...
. The piece was completed and installed in 1988 for the Sculpture Garden's opening and consists of a large cherry resting atop a large spoon partially straddling a small pond.
History
In the mid-1980s, the
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...
in
Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
, Minnesota, commissioned a piece of work from married couple
Claes Oldenburg and
Coosje van Bruggen, whose first artistic collaboration had come in 1976.
The work, which had its $500,000 budget donated by art collector
Frederick R. Weisman
The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum is an art museum at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1934 as University Gallery, the museum was originally housed in an upper floor of the university's Northrop Auditorium. In 19 ...
, was to be placed in the new outdoor
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is an park in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States.
It is located near the Walker Art Center, which operates it in coordination with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. It reopened June 10, 2017 af ...
across Vineland Place from the Walker on land owned by the
Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.
An early concept for the sculpture was a
Viking ship with a dragon
figurehead set in a circular reflecting pool; a 1986 article in the ''
Star Tribune
The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...
'' describes this vision as having been "quickly abandoned".
The iconography of the spoon had been present in Oldenburg's work for a number of years since he acquired a piece of
kitsch
Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly-eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste.
The avant-garde opposed kitsch as melodramatic and superficial affiliation with ...
depicting a spoon atop a mass of chocolate in 1962.
The cherry was contributed by van Bruggen, who found inspiration in the formality of the sculpture garden's design, in the
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...
, and in the dining etiquette of
Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Vers ...
's court.
Walker curator Siri Engberg said in 2013 that the bowl of the spoon was associated with "the prow of a Viking ship, a duck rising out of the water, various flora and fauna,
ndice skating" for Oldenburg and van Bruggen. Martin Friedman, director of the Walker, said of the work that the artists did not intend to craft a "sculptural symbol of Minneapolis" but that he believed ''Spoonbridge and Cherry'' would "be a landmark and
ould Ould is an English surname and an Arabic name ( ar, ولد). In some Arabic dialects, particularly Hassaniya Arabic, ولد (the patronymic, meaning "son of") is transliterated as Ould. Most Mauritanians have patronymic surnames.
Notable p ...
give a lot of people pleasure".
The piece was fabricated between 1987 and 1988 at two
shipyard
A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance a ...
s, one in
Boothbay, Maine, and the other in
Bristol, Rhode Island
Bristol is a town in Bristol County, Rhode Island, US as well as the historic county seat. The town is built on the traditional territories of the Pokanoket Wampanoag. It is a deep water seaport named after Bristol, England.
The population of B ...
, and finished in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
, at sculpture fabricator Lippincott, Inc.
It was placed in the northern portion of the Sculpture Garden by two cranes on May 9, 1988. The Sculpture Garden held opening ceremonies September 9–11 of that year, with an official dedication on September 10 featuring a band of
spoon players.
''Spoonbridge and Cherry'' was entirely repainted in 1995.
In 2012, the word "Kony" was
spray paint
Aerosol paint (commonly spray paint) is paint that comes in a sealed, pressurized container and is released in an aerosol spray when a valve button is depressed. Aerosol painting is one form of spray painting; it leaves a smooth, even coat, unlike ...
ed onto the sculpture's spoon, possibly as part of
Invisible Children
''Invisible Children'' is a 2006 American documentary film that depicts the human rights abuses by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.
Synopsis
In the spring of 2003, Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole traveled to Africa to document ...
's
Cover the Night campaign, requiring the sculpture to be scrubbed and repaired, which Walker staff were able to complete within 48 hours. In 2021, the cherry of the ''Spoonbridge and Cherry'' was sent to New York to be entirely repainted again. It was returned to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden in 2022.
Design
''Spoonbridge and Cherry'' measures and straddles a small pond built in the shape of a
linden tree seed, evoking the lindens in the surrounding park.
The pond's shores were lined with
irises and
reeds.
The sculpture is built from
stainless steel
Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corros ...
and
aluminum
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has ...
and coated with
polyurethane enamel.
The cherry portion of the piece weighs while the spoon portion weighs .
The sculpture emits filtered water from both the tip and the base of the cherry's stem, the latter intended to keep the cherry gleaming in the light.
Reception
The editors of
Phaidon Press
Phaidon Press is a global publisher of books on art, architecture, design, fashion, photography, and popular culture, as well as cookbooks, children's books, and travel books. The company is based in London and New York City, with additional off ...
wrote favorably of the sculpture's placement in a park frequented by families, writing that the "surprise of finding a oversized fruit spooned up in a park, together with its curved forms and the bright colour, creates a sensuous joy that makes the work immediately accessible to a wide audience, including children."
Writing in the ''Star Tribune'' a year after the Sculpture Garden's opening, Chris Waddington found the linden seed pond critical to enjoying ''Spoonbridge'', writing that in winter months when the pond was frozen and snowed over, the sculpture "can seem like a soulless mock-up, a quirky idea that lost its charm somewhere between the artist's hand and the factory where it was built; but with spring comes the fountain's spray, the pool's play of liquid reflections on steel and an animate charge that recalls the poetry of the artists' original sketches."
Within a decade of the Sculpture Garden's opening, the ''Star Tribune'' reported that ''Spoonbridge'' was "something of an icon for the Walker". In 2001, Eric Dregni wrote that the sculpture had "become the unofficial symbol of Minneapolis" and in 2008, ''City Pages'' described it as "one of the Twin Cities' most iconic images."
The Walker reported receiving more requests for images of ''Spoonbridge and Cherry'' than any other work in its collections.
References
External links
''Spoonbridge and Cherry''at the
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...
{{Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen
1988 establishments in Minnesota
1988 sculptures
Buildings and structures completed in 1988
Outdoor sculptures in Minnesota
Sculptures by Claes Oldenburg
Sculptures by Coosje van Bruggen
Stainless steel sculptures in the United States
Fountains in the United States
Steel sculptures in Minnesota
Culture of Minneapolis
Aluminum sculptures in the United States
Public art in Minnesota
Vandalized works of art in Minnesota
Spoons
Cherries
Tourist attractions in Minneapolis