General Mills' art al fresco.

• Author: Ferling, Rhona L.
• Position: Corporate Gallery: The General Mills Collection of Outdoor Sculpture

At General Mills' headquarters in Minneapolis, the artwork takes all kinds of abuse - but not from disgruntled employees. Part of the company's art collection is outdoors, and the sculptures and public spaces must withstand everything from a Minnesota winter to drenching spring rains. The collection began in the mid-1980s, when General Mills learned the highway bordering its grounds was to be reconfigured. To avoid the highway's detracting from the grounds, the company decided to bring in a landscape architect to reshape the property and incorporate outdoor sculpture into the overall setting.

Because the idea behind the outdoor collection was to create an integrated, harmonious outdoor environment, the company wasn't content to simply "plop" down just any piece of stone on its grounds, says curator Donald McNeil. General Mills commissioned artists for 11 of the 13 outdoor pieces and asked them "to react to the site and create something specific for us," he recalls. Even the artists who had created the two non-commissioned works were very involved in selecting the sites where the company would display their pieces.

For several of the artists, this was a ground-breaking venture in more ways than one, because many hadn't worked outside or on large-scale projects before. Plus, General Mills encouraged them to try working in different materials. "We had the full creative juices and attention of the artists," McNeil says.

But that didn't mean the artists had carte blanche. The company had an engineer work with the artists to ensure they chose materials that would hold up well. And the art "had to visually function during the winter," McNeil stresses. "We had an artist who wanted to do some kind of mosaic on the ground, but it would have been hidden under the snow from November to March, so we scrapped that idea."

From some angles, you can see several of the sculptures at once, but not...