Thursday, August 1, 2013

Day 15: Sculpture Garden, Art Museum, Historic Bridge

The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is an 11-acre park that is operated by the Walker Art Center, which is located across a small access road, in coordination with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. This gives it a dual identity. In addition to presenting a world-class sculpture garden, it also serves as a family-friendly recreation center with a conservatory and garden displays.

The central sculpture is an iconic work by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, which was commissioned for this location. It is a great sculpture because it is both strange and familiar and suggests all sorts of symbolism; it also is a magnet for little kids, who cluster around the water's edge pointing at the tiny stream of water emitting from the stem.

Oldenburg and van Bruggen
Spoonbridge and Cherry, 1988
The Sculpture Park is the cherry on the sundae
From there, the kids head for a monumental framework-like sculpture by Mark di Suvero that has been outfitted with a platform hanging by chains like a swing where they all pose for cell-phone photos by their mothers and teachers. 

Mark di Suvero, b. 1933
Arikidea, 1982
Another of di Suvero's sculptures tempts them to do some climbing, though a nearby sign prohibits this.

Mark di Suvero, b. 1933
Moleculte, 1983
A concrete block work by Sol LeWitt looks like it was designed for hide and seek.

Sol LeWitt, 1928-2007
X with Columns, 1996
This sculpture by Charles Ginnever evokes a sea monster.

Charles Ginnever, b. 1931
Nautilus, 1976
Jackie Ferrara builds works that are intended as viewpoints, stages, and seating.

Jackie Ferrara, b. 1929
Belvedere, 1988
Other sculptures also functioned as seating. Just inside the entrance is a square arrangement of 28 white granite benches by Jenny Holzer that are engraved with aphorisms. Philip Larson did a bench with the base in the form of crystals. There were two sculptures by Scott Burton, who specialized in benches. 

Scott Burton, 1939-1989
Seat-Leg Table, 1986
An innovative work by Dan Graham combines hedges with two-way mirrors to form a labyrinth. Mirrors always tempt me to do a selfie.

Dan Graham, b. 1942
Two-Way Mirror Punched Steel Hedge Labyrinth, 1996

Selfie with two-way mirror
As for gardens, in addition to the conservatory—a large, airless glass structure that was much too hot to explore that day—there was a long memorial arbor planted with gorgeous flowers, and a sculpture in the form of a horticultural display.

Fritz Haeg, b. 1969
Foraging Circle, 2013
In the background is Grossman Memorial Arbor, 1988
The sculpture garden has a rather unfortunate location next to a busy freeway with parallel boulevards on either side. On the other side of the freeway is Loring Park, a pretty place with mature trees offering deep shade. The two are connected by an artist-designed pedestrian bridge. It is painted blue and white, like the sky, and a long poem is painted along its structure from one side to the other. It crosses 16 lanes of traffic. Walking across it is noisy and intense.

Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge, 1988
Designed by Siah Armajani, b. 1939

We spent a long morning in the sculpture garden, then went across an access road to the Walker Art Center to have lunch in their Gather Restaurant. The restaurant is located in the new wing of the art center, which was designed by Herzog and de Meuron, who also designed the de Young Museum in San Francisco, one of our "home" museums. We enjoyed the angled space and windows. Dan's Chinese chicken salad was superior; my salad of asparagus and haricot verts (green beans) was also quite good. From the restaurant I walked out onto a balcony that gave a good view of the construction project that was creating the background noise; the tile is being replaced on the original building, which was designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes.

The Walker's collection seemed pretty thin to us; not much Art, as we know it; narry a sign of painting or drawing or sculpting. It was mainly photographs in different formats or displayed in constructed settings. The intent seemed to be documenting community activities. For instance, some family divided their large yard into several carefully planned gardens with help of all their neighbors and photographed the process. That's nice. There were photos of Minneapolis buildings being destroyed. That's that. There was a giant phony piece of bling with CNN as a logo, like a cross. That's cute.

Edgar Heap of Birds, b. 1954
Telling Many Magpies, 1989

Thomas Hirschhorn, b. 1957
Necklace, CNN, 2002
Oh yeah, Bruce Naumann devoted a large gallery to several video projections of a basement with a rat occasionally running around and a cat occasionally seeking it; very dull stuff, blurry, and under-lighted, and some of the videos were upside down.

We returned to the sculpture garden to see what we had missed. By then the light was more mellow and  it was a little cooler. A breeze came up and I got fascinated with trying to make a movie of wind chimes hanging in a line of trees, trying to capture the elusive sound and the flickering look of the slender chimes hiding among the leaves; this piece was by Pierre Huyghe, b. 1962. I also spent awhile pondering an "artist-designed" miniature golf course; it sort of rubbed me the wrong way, but it was very popular with young people. I ran into a couple of very cute teens who had thought up a novel way to meet people.

You get what you pay for
Our next objective was the Stone Arch Bridge. This elegant granite and limestone structure was built as a railway bridge across the Mississippi River in the early 1880s. In the early 1990s it was renovated as a pedestrian and bicycle trail.

Here we had a rare mishap: we got separated. This is a constant danger and it's a wonder it doesn't happen more often. Dan wanted to take pictures of the bridge, but we started out walking over the bridge in order to see the lock, the waterfall and the river. He meant to walk only a short way and then go down to a road below where he could take photos, but somehow I couldn't quit looking at the river; I must have walked on while he was taking a picture. It's a long bridge, and views of the river are interesting both ways. At one place you can see some remains of an abandoned sawmill, and the current makes a twist and turn. About 2/3 of the way across, the sun was burning on my back like a laser beam; I was so overheated that I knew I couldn't make it all they way back. I could see there was a shady park on the other side and I needed to sit in the cool breeze for awhile before I tackled the return trip. At one point I could actually hear Dan shouting my name, but I couldn't see him. I was just settling into a shady spot, when he came up shouting at me; he was frightened and frustrated. I shouted back for awhile, then we sat in the shade, drank some water and enjoyed the breeze. The little park was a wonderful island of repose in this intense city. By the time we walked back, there was more breeze on the river and I made it just fine.
I didn't take any still photos of the bridge

View from the bridge of abandoned mills
that have been repurposed for housing and a museum
Then we found a road on the riverbank that gave Dan the shots he was looking for. I took mostly movies.

We ate at the hotel and Dan did a load of wash. I charged the cell phones, and we practiced using them to call each other.