Follow Dean: The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, Loring Park, and Downtown

Today was a day of viewing artwork. My last blog post showed artwork that I found interesting at the Minneapolis Institute of Art this morning. This post covers what I did the rest of the day.

-- Minneapolis Sculpture Garden --

After I left the Institute of Art, I drove to the outdoor Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Probably the most famous sculpture in the garden is the "Spoonbridge and Cherry", by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.

My visit had great timing... after all, what are the chances of seeing a "cherry picker" next to the cherry sculpture? I saw both today! 😂

Another iconic sculpture in the sculpture garden is the blue rooster. It is titled, "Hahn/Cock", by Katharina Fritsch. (Hahn is German for rooster or cock.)

An "Untitled" sculpture, by Jim Hodges, reminds me of fillings in teeth. Although most fillings are white nowadays, fillings used to look silver or gold, so it is not much of a stretch to consider other colors such as the yellow, blue, orange, and purple caps on the rocks, below.

The garden has several other statues, but I'll just mention a couple more here. One is the form or a raised hand made of bricks. It is titled, "Hand of Minneapolis", by Judith Hopf. I think it is interesting that the artist was able to successfully construct the contours of a hand in brick.

The last sculpture I will mention is a very dynamic one. It is titled, "Two-Way Mirror Punched Steel Hedge Labyrinth", by Dan Graham. It has multiple instances of a glass panel at a right angle to a steel panel with holes punched in it.

I can't explain how it works, but somehow it creates a two-way mirror where you see a reflection of things on your side of the glass, such as your own reflection, but also can see through the glass to see things located behind the glass. Both images are superimposed on top of each other.

For example, I can see myself reflected back in the glass, but can also see the two people walking behind the glass. The building is physically behind the walking people, but the cherry is behind me even though its reflection is seen between the walking people. I'm not sure about image of the hedge, because there is a hedge on each side of the glass.

Depending on the viewing angle, things can fade into or out of view, as my body does in the following photo. The result is very fluid and dynamic. If you aren't familiar with your surroundings, it can be confusing whether a given component of the projected image is for an object on the near side or the far side of the glass.

-- Loring Park --

A footbridge over the freeway connects the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden with Loring Park. It was interesting to look down and watch the drivers on the freeway. I was surprised how clearly I could see them through their windshields as they passed by. Some drivers had two hands on the wheel, and some had one. Some were concentrating on the road, and others were looking at their cell phone, eating, or were distracted in other ways.

Loring Park has a small lake that is stocked with fish, and a few people were fishing on a short pier.

The park also has a community garden with raised beds. People can sign up for a free plot to grow food. This reminds me of the community gardens in Detroit.

I typically think of squirrels as being gray or brown, but the park has a lot of black squirrels. They look like big rats, except for their bushy tails.

I walked around the lake, and as I was walking back to the footbridge, I saw some unexpected graffiti on a handrail. I wouldn't typically expect to see the word "Forgive" written in graffiti, but it is a positive message.

-- Downtown Minneapolis --

Downtown Minneapolis has enclosed skywalks between several of the buildings just like I saw in Rochester and St Paul. This common feature is understandable, since the cities all have similar cold weather in the winter!

St Anthony Falls are downtown on the Mississippi river. A stone bridge crosses the river below the falls, but it is currently closed for repair, so I couldn't walk onto it. I was able to see the falls from the shore, though. The falls look a lot different now than they looked in the painting I saw in the art museum this morning, which was painted before the man-made structures were built around the river and falls.