Famous Art Critique

Sculpture: Spoonbridge and Cherry

Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Artist: Claes Oldenburg and his wife, Goosje van Bruggen

I am doing a critique on the sculpture, Spoonbridge and Cherry in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This sculpture was created by an artist, Claes Oldenburg, and his wife, Goosje van Bruggen in the year 1985. Oldenburg was an artist who was known for enlarging objects that are used every day. Such as utensils, writing or painting utensils, or even food. The spoon weighs 5800 ponds and the cherry weighs 1200 pounds. This sculpture is in the center of the Walker Art Center’s Minneapolis Sculpture Garden where there are a lot of linden trees and from the picture, you can see the buildings of Minneapolis as well. The spoon has a sharp curve on the neck of it and the cherry pops out with a vibrant red color. And at the summit of the cherry’s stem there is a spout of water that comes out into the bowl of the spoon and into the pond.

The sculpture itself is very abstract in its own ways. The handle of the spoon first curves down onto the surface of the river, and then the neck and the scooping end of the spoon curves upward towards the sky. The spoon has a very dull color, but the cherry at the tip of the spoon has a very bright red when the sun shines onto it. The sculpture is surrounded by the linden trees in the park making the art piece very significant.

Oldenburg was the only artist who was recognized for his paintings of oversized, everyday objects and consumables. Out of Oldenburg and van Bruggen, the spoon was Oldenburg’s idea with his obsession of doodling spoons since the beginning years as a sculptor. He was first inspired by a spoon resting on a piece of fake chocolate. The cherry was Bruggen’s idea in a way to compliment the garden’s self-restrained layout. The pond that is associated with this piece is shaped to a linden seed to signify the linden trees around it.

I think that the painting itself is very innovational since I have never seen anything like it. I like how the spoon curves into the pond making it very abstract. The cherry grabs my attention with the red vibrant color and I think it was clever to have the stem made into a fountain. Without the color of the cherry, I would be less interested into the sculpture.