Claes Oldenburg: January 28, – July 18,
I am for an art that is political, erotical, mystical, that does something more than sit on its ass in a museum.
– Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg, known for his giant sculptures of everyday objects, died in his SoHo home and studio on Monday, July 18th, The cause of death was complications after a fall. Oldenburg was
Oldenburg was born in Stockholm in His mother was a concert singer, his father a Swedish consular officer. The family moved to Chicago in He graduated from Yale in , where he studied literature and art history. After graduating, he worked as a reporter in Chicago, then an illustrator in San Francisco. He became a United States citizen in and moved to New York in , where he began his long and successful sixty-year career as an artist.
During his early years, Oldenburg staged performances and “Happenings’ with fellow artists like Jim Dine and Donald Judd. His first exhibition, at the Judson Gallery in May , included drawings, collages and objects made of papier-mâché. He made large sculptures of everyday objects, that viewers could interact wi
Summary of Claes Oldenburg
With his saggy hamburgers, colossal clothespins and giant three-way plugs, Claes Oldenburg has been the reigning king of Pop sculpture since the early s, back when New York was still truly gritty. In he rented a storefront, called it The Store, and stocked it with stuffed, crudely-painted forms resembling diner food, cheap clothing, and other mass-manufactured items that stupefied an audience accustomed to the austere, non-representational forms in Abstract Expressionist sculpture. These so-called "soft-sculptures" are now hailed as the first sculptural expressions in Pop art. While his work has continued to grow in scale and ambition, his focus has remained steadfast: everyday items are presented on a magnified scale that reverses the traditional relationship between viewer and object. Oldenburg shrinks the spectator into a bite-sized morsel that might be devoured along with a giant piece of cake, or crushed by an enormous ice pack. His work shows us just how small we are, and serves as a vehicle for his smart, witty, critical, and often wickedly funny insights on American culture over the past half-century.
Accomplishments
- Whereas Pop artists
Here's what I think. Quite a number of Oldenburg's pieces are essentially O-shaped like this light switch, pretzel and plug. Given how artists use their initials in similar ways, the O's probably refer to Oldenburg's name but are also a circle for one-ness and the eye.{ref2} The underlying unity to existence is an integral part of art, the Inner Tradition and the original teachings of all major religions. However, our minds tend to see the world in polar terms, divided between male/female, good/bad, artist/model, etc. Art history itself is constructed like this. To be whole, happy and wise, we need to recognize that duality exists within unity.
Perhaps that's why there are dual forms in these examples (left): two switches, two inverted sides of a pretzel, two slots in a plug. They show, I believe, how duality is present in unity, in both the artist's mind and the One Mind, often symbolized by a universal eye.
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Using as his subject matter the common and commercial objects in his urban surroundings, especially the city’s Lower East Side, Oldenburg established himself at the beginning of the s with a series of installations and performances, among them The Street (), The Store (), and Ray Gun Theater (), which contributed significantly to the emergence of American Pop art. During a stay in Los Angeles in , he focused on subjects inspired by what he called The Home, including the installation Bedroom Ensemble (). He went on to create performances in Los Angeles (Autobodys, ), Chicago (Gayety, ), Washington, D.C. (Stars, ), New York (Washes and Moveyhouse, ), and Stockholm (Massage, ). In , after showing sculptures based on European edibles in Paris, he returned to New York and, continuing to use ordinary, everyday objects as his means of expression, developed "soft" sculptures and fantastic proposals for buildings and civic monuments.At the end of the decade, Oldenburg took up fabrication on a large scale with Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks (), which became a controversial focus for student protest when it was installed on the campus of Yale University
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