We will start this exploration of math in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden with a discussion of scale and ratio in art.

A highlight of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is the monumental fountain-sculpture Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. While Oldenburg and van Bruggen, his wife and collaborator, have produced a number of large-scale sculptures of everyday objects—such as a flashlight in Las Vegas and a firehouse in Freiburg, Switzerland—Spoonbridge and Cherry is their first fountain-sculpture. The giant spoon stretches 52 feet across a small pond shaped like a linden tree seed.

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen collaborated on Spoonbridge and Cherry which was commissioned for the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Here is what they had to say about this piece:

Claes: "Very often I am sitting at dinner and I take out my notebook. I get very inspired when I eat, for some reason."

Coosje: "One of the things that sculptors who work in an urban surrounding think of is scale, the object in comparison to the other things in the surroundings—buildings, the highway, the Cathedral, lantern posts, anything."

Discussion Questions:

Why do you think Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen chose to exaggerate the scale of this artwork?

What other objects do you think could make interesting large-scale artworks?

This sculpture in the Cowles Conservatory by sculptor and architect Frank Gehry was inspired by a carp.

In Toronto, when I was very young, my grandmother and I used to go to Kensington, a Jewish market, on Thursday morning. She would buy a carp for gefilte fish. She'd put it in the bathtub, fill the bathtub with water, and this big black carp—two or three feet long—would swim around in the bathtub and I would play with it. I would stand up there and watch it turn and twist . . . and then she'd kill it and make gefilte fish and that was always sad and awful and ugly.

—Frank Gehry

Known for his innovative architectural projects, Frank Gehry includes fish in his drawings for buildings, makes fish lamps, and has even designed buildings shaped like fish. Gehry designed this restaurant in Kobe, Japan in 1987, one year after crafting Standing Glass Fish at the Walker Art Center.

Discussion Question:

How is this building like the sculpture? How is it different?

In this lesson, students will learn about the importance of size and distinguish between life-size and an increased or decreased scale in art. They'll draw a household object in three sizes and turn the drawing into a soft relief sculpture.

This Art Lab lesson plan is presented as a PDF file that you can preview in ArtsConnectEd or download to your computer. Click the "More Info" button below and then use the "Prev" / "Next" buttons to toggle through the PDF's pages until you arrive at the link to download the file.

Before emerging as one of the forerunners of Minimal sculpture in the 1960s, Tony Smith worked as an apprentice to architect Frank Lloyd Wright and practiced as an architect from 1940 to 1960.

Discussion Questions:

How is this sculpture similar to a building?  How is it different?

To get  an idea of the scale of this work, click on the "More Info" button and scroll down to the "Scale" tab. How does this sculpture compare to the size of an average person? How would your reaction to this sculpture change if it were larger? Smaller?

You can use this template as another way to solve the math challenge for Amaryllis. Or you can use it to make your own model of this sculpture.

How to make a model of the sculpture Amaryllis by Tony Smith using this template:

1. You can preview this handout in ArtsConnectEd or download the PDF file to your computer. Click on the "More Info" button and use the "Prev" / "Next" buttons to toggle between the page previews and a link to the file.
2. Make a copy of both pages and cut out the shapes.
3. Fold on the solid lines and use the small tabs to help tape the sides together.
4. After making two of these forms, match up the letters and tape them together to make a model of Amaryllis.

How does this model relate to the surface area challenge you saw earlier? Does the model make apparent any clues or methods that would allow you to refine and follow through with your consideration of the sculpture's surface area?

In X with Columns, as in a number of his other works, Sol LeWitt uses geometric forms and neutral materials—cinder blocks and concrete. The artist says that he was attracted to this unlikely medium "because it was a totally 'non-art' one" with no historical associations. The low-tech masonry process lends itself to the basic geometric shapes he favors.

Click the "More Info" button and use the "Prev" / "Next" buttons to see multiple views of the work.

After the Sol LeWitt develops a concept, a team of artisans fabricate the artwork by following a specified plan.

What the work of art looks like isn't too important. It has to look like something, if it has physical form. No matter what form it may finally have, it must begin with an idea.

Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple. Successful ideas generally have the appearance of simplicity because they seem inevitable. In terms of idea the artist is free to even surprise himself. Ideas are discoverd by intuition.

—Sol Lewitt, 1967

Try this:

Using the same number of cinderblocks as Sol LeWitt used for X with Columns, design a different geometric sculpture.

Write instructions for someone else to build your new sculpture.