Oldenburg's "Spoonbridge and Cherry"
By Barbara Falconer Newhall
After our visit to the the Walker Art Center in downtown Minneapolis, my son Peter and I walked across the street to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
Claes Oldenburg’s ”Spoonbridge and Cherry” (1985-1988) was a kick, but I gravitated toward Jenny Holzer’s “Selections From the Living Series” (1989). Holzer’s twenty-eight white granite benches look innocuous enough — until you get closer. Each bench bears a pithy — tongue in cheek? — aphorism.
I took pictures of my favorites.
A walk in the garden.
A Jenny Holzer bench. This one's all about getting out of college and facing the possibility of downward mobility "at the end of an era of plenty." For the sake of my twenty-something kids, I'm hoping she's wrong.
This one caught my attention: "There is a period when it is clear that you have gone wrong, but you continue. Sometimes there is a luxurious amount of time before anything bad happens."
Photos c 2009 B.F. Newhall
