7 funny sculptures to catch at the Minnesota State Fair

There’s one more weekend to get to the State Fair. If the line to ride the Skyride is just too long to wait, and you’ve had too many cookies and want to walk off the calories, take a stroll through the fair and find these funny sculptures. Start at the Dairy Building and work your way around the fairgrounds.

There is nothing more Minnesota State Fair iconic than the amusing production of princesses being carved out of 90-pound blocks of butter before your very eyes. High school art teacher and professional sculptor Gerry Kulzer, who took the reins from longtime butter sculptor Linda Christensen in 2021, put on a winter coat, stepped into a giant refrigerator that spins around and carved Rachel Visser, crowned the 2024 Princess Kay of the Milky Way, and then live-carved busts of finalists of the statewide Dairy Princess Program of Midwest Dairy. Pictured above is finalist Selena Corona, about an hour into the carving process, on Wednesday afternoon. It’s funny, absurd and awe-inspiring to watch a block of butter turn into a young lady’s face in five hours flat. The Minneapolis Institute of Art even got in on the buttery fun by creating an imagining of the sculpture, “Veiled Lady,” in butter on its Instagram account. This is a photoshopped idea and doesn’t exist in real life or at the State Fair, but the original work of art does live at Mia in Gallery 357.

On the way out of the Dairy Building, catch David Kamish’s milky version version of Snoopy, with a cup of chocolate milk in one paw and regular milk in the other. He even has a red hat with a cow on the front of it.

Do clowns terrify you or do they make you laugh? This clown will do a little of both. Made by artist Johnnie Hunter, this classic clown with a white face, red nose and red pants holds up a bunch of balloons that look like giant Q-Tips. The clown’s blue shoes are pretty shredded, making me wonder what happened to it. Is that funny or just sad? This sculpture is near the northeast corner of Underwood Street and Wright Avenue.

There are many ways to experience corn at the Minnesota State Fair. Eat many cobs of it, check out crop art in the Agriculture Horticulture Building or encounter the 6-foot ear of corn on Underwood Street just north of Randall Avenue, near a fried pickle restaurant. Created by Dennis Roghair, the corn has lost some of its color over the years, but it’s still pretty corn-a-rific.

Keep walking toward the north side of the fair and you’ll encounter many corporate vendors and sponsors. A giant rubber ducky got everyone smiling and stopping for a photo. It’s certainly in just a temporary spot, in front of the Re-Bath booth near Randall Avenue and Underwood Street, but cute and funny nonetheless.

Dennis Roghair’s Pepe the Pronto Pup stands in front of the Pronto Pup stand, on Cooper Street. With a sombrero, big mustache and a head in the shape of a corn dog, this sculpture is funny but also awkward. It celebrates the 1947 creation of this food on a stick.

More charming than funny, the constant Minnesota references to Charles Schulz’s iconic “Peanuts” characters pop up all over the Twin Cities. Across from the Admin Too building, Lucy wears a top hat and Snoopy has a shirt on that says, “Let the fun begin.”