Cheerio Bowl Zen Garden Kind Of Thing

In 2007 General Mills commissioned Minnesota post-minimalist sculptor Jud Nelson to create Cheerios, megalithic replicas of the company’s flagship cereal carved from Florida coral limestone. The title of this post is a quote from Don McNeill, General Mills’ art curator, who installed the sculptures in a round, but not explicitly bowl-shaped, field of smaller stones.

a google maps detail of general mills corporate headquarters in minnsota includes a 2- and 3-storey modernist corporate building along the top and right sides, with a series of courtyard and landscape-articulated spaces in between and below. the narrowest courtyard between the bldgs has a zen garden of cheerios-shaped limestone sculptures. the square grass field next to it has a circular table sculpture. to the left of that is a grove of trees with a grid of plantings, and below, a walkway defines another grass field with a granite sculpture with a pine tree in the center of it that feels like a mix of podium, stage set, altar, and fireplace

They are installed in a courtyard between Skidmore Owings & Merrill’s original 1957 buildings. On Google Maps, you can see they’re near Scott Burton’s Public Table (1987) [pic], and whatever granite and tree sculpture is in this photo.

[update: Ian thought to look up the General Mills Art Collection at SIRIS, and it is Oasis (1990), by Richard Artschwager (?!). The most relevant result I can find is a mention in Corporate Art Collections: A Handbook to Corporate Buying, 2012, from Sotheby’s Institute of Art. The Burton and the Judson feel like standouts. Turns out General Mills also acquired a 1986 Richard Serra, Core, two 14- and 17-ft Cor-ten sections of a cone, angling in toward each other, which was installed by the artist. Google Streetview shows it was removed in early 2019.]