Best of
the Twin Cities
In rebooting the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, the Walker Art Center didn’t just want to create a more inviting space: It wanted to install a new local icon. The Walker set the bar high in 1988 with Spoonbridge and Cherry, which became a must-stop photo op despite (or, maybe, because of) a winking pop-art aesthetic that had zero to do with the Twin Cities’ traditional branding. Giant livestock is more like what we usually go in for, so the Walker must have known it had a hit on its hands when it acquired Katharina Fritsch’s blue rooster. By the time the Sculpture Garden belatedly reopened last June (not all the new acquisitions were so well-advised), the tote bags were already printed and ready to go. The bird stands proud, but the wink is implicit: Come to Minneapolis and take a selfie with a 25-foot cock. Kind of makes you look at that cherry a little differently, doesn’t it?
