2. ABOUT CLAES
American artist Claes Oldenburg created works of art which were a
wonderful blend of reality and fantasy. Oldenburg's artistic success was due in
part to his irreverent humor and incisive social commentary. He took objects
from the everyday world such as typewriters, lipstick, a flashlight; lifted them
out of their usual context; and forced viewers to reassess their preconceptions
about the objects.
Oldenburg's style changed and developed over the years. He worked
in a variety of modes, including drawing, painting, film, soft sculpture, and large
scale sculpture in steel. After 1959 he was influenced by the theater. His
involvement in "happenings" in the early 1960s resulted from his interest in
both participatory art and Freudian free association.
3. HISTORY
WHERE IS HE FROM?
* Claes was born in 1925 in Stockholm, Sweden.
* Born to Gösta Oldenburg, and his wife Sigrid Elisabeth née Lindforss.
* Gösta was a Swedish diplomat stationed in New York – and later was
appointed Consul General of Sweden to Chicago.
* The family moved to Chicago which is where Claes spent a lot of his
childhood.
4. HISTORY
HOW DID HE GET INTO ART?
* Claes studied literature and art history at Yale University 1946
– 1950
* He then studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
* While furthering his skills, he was a reporter for the City News
Bureau of Chicago.
* He also briefly painted at the Oxbow School of Painting, in
Michigan.
* His early years in New York were shaped by his contact with
other artists struggling to move beyond the confines of Abstract
Expressionism, including Red Grooms, Allan Kaprow, Robert
Whitman, Lucas Samaras, George Segal, and Jim Dine. All
were interested in art as experience and in pushing to the limit
the question "What is art?" They began to stage "happenings"
based in part on the European DADA ethos of the 1920s (and a
forerunner to the 1980s performance artists). This was the
beginning of the Pop Art movement.
6. POP ART MOVEMENT
* Pop art is a 20th Century art movement
that utilized the imagery, style and
techniques of consumerist society and
popular culture, favoured media derived
figural imagery and the mass reproduction
of everyday objects.
* Pop artists used common images from
everyday culture as their sources
including: advertisements and consumer
goods, celebrities and photographs and
comic strips.
* Bright colours
* Some pop artists: Andy Warhol, Roy
Lichtenstein and Robert Indiana.
7. SERIES
THE STREET 1960
* Claes used subject matter that were
common and commercial objects in his
urban surroundings, he had a series of
installations and performances, among
them were The Street (1960), The Store
(1961), which contributed significantly to
the American pop art.
* The Street:
* The Street (1960), consisted of
cardboard and burlap forms in the
shape of cars, signs, or figures, which
the artist painted in a rough, graffiti like
style. These torn and tattered objects
were suspended from the ceiling or
propped against gallery walls.
Oldenburg employed cast-off materials
to evoke the chaos and brutality of life in
the slums of Chicago and New York.
8. THE STORE 1961
* The Store:
* The following year embarked on his second
project The Store, filling a rented storefront with
colourful, enamel-painted plaster reliefs and
free-standing plaster sculptures of everyday
items such as clothing, food and toys.
* Were extraordinarily far-seeing in the way they
erased the differences between consumer
goods and their perfected images in advertising,
not to mention the line separating art from any
other commodity. A mountainous silver cash
register squatting on a pedestal at the center of
the show seems pulled from the real world
(shown below).
9. FIRST URBAN SCALE SCULPTURE
* His first sculpture to be realized
in urban scale was he 45 foot
high Clothespin, installed in
Philadelphia in 1976.
12. PEPSI-COLA SIGN
Pepsi-Cola Sign,
Claes Oldenburg, 1961,
The Museum of Modern Art.
DETAILS:
Muslin soaked in plaster over wire frame &
painted with enamel, 58 1/4 x 46 1/2 x 7
1/2 in.
* The Pepsi sign is American as
apple pie
Uses the same red, white and
blue that the American flag does
– patriotism.
* Role of the capitalist economy
13. RED TIGHTS WITH FRAGMENT 9
Red Tights with Fragment 9,
Claes Oldenburg, 1961,
The Museum of Modern Art.
DETAILS:
Muslin soaked in plaster over wire frame, painted with
enamel. 69 5/8 x 34 1/4 x 8 3/4" (176.7 x 87 x 22.2 cm).
* “Vision of a pair of red teenage tights
seen in the wind at the corner of Avenue
A and 14th Street”.
* Display of merchandise, but its jagged
edges and the single number 9 also
lend it the appearance of a torn
advertisement.
14. 7-UP, Claes Oldenburg,
1961, The Museum of Modern Art.
DETAILS:
Enamel on plaster-soaked cloth on wire,
55 x 39 1/4 x 5 ½
7-UP SIGN
* Crumpled surface and sloppily applied
paint relate to the then dominant gestural
aesthetics of abstract expressionism, and
to the messiness of street trash.
* Bright enamel paint on 7-up mimics the
real product and also alludes to the brash
colours of billboards and advertisements.
16. FRENCH FRIES AND KETCHUP
French fries and ketchup,
Claes Oldenburg, 1963,
Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York, USA
DETAILS:
Made from: Vinyl and kapok on wood base
10 1/2 x 42 x 44 in. (26.67 x 106.68 x 111.76 cm)
* Main notions and ideologies of the
abundance of consumerism.
* Bright poppy red is coating the
neutral and bland colours of the fries
and plate.
* Symbolism- pop culture, bland
society
17. FLOOR BURGER
Floor Burger,
Claes Oldenburg, 1962,
Collection Art Gallery of Ontario,
Toronto
DETAILS:
Made from: Canvas filled with foam rubber and
cardboard boxes, painted with acrylic paint
132.1x213.4 cms
* This massice over-sized version of
a 20th century icon evokes a sense
of incredulity.
* Imitation of one of the worlds most
potent symbols of American culture
18. FLOOR CAKE
Floor Cake,
Claes Oldenburg, 1962,
The Museum of Modern Art,
New York, USA
DETAILS:
Made from: Synthetic polymer paint and latex
on canvas filled with foam rubber and
cardboard boxes
58 3/8" x 9' 6 1/4" x 58 3/8" (148.2 x 290.2 x
148.2 cm)
* Strong emphasis on the distaste
and saturation that was occurring
during the revolution that was
occurring.
20. SPOONBRIDGE AND CHERRY
Spoonbridge and Cherry,
Claes Oldenburg, 1985-1988,
Minneapolis, USA
DETAILS:
Made from: aluminum, stainless steel, paint
SIZE………
* Installed in Minneapolis Sculpture
Garden in 1988.
* Oldenburg has used a spoon as a
motif or theme in drawings or studies
since the early 1960s.
* Spoonbridge and Cherry has
become a landmark for Minneapolis
and this whimsical sculpture is a
favourite among visitors to the Walker
Art Centre.
21. SHUTTLECOCK/BLACKBERRY PIE II
Shuttlecock/Blackberry Pie II,
Claes Oldenburg, 1999
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
USA
DETAILS:
Made from: cast aluminum painted with acrylic urethane.
SIZE….
* Transformed a shuttlecock into a pie in
the sky, a lovely slice of blackberry pie.
22. DROPPED CONE
Dropped Cone, Claes Oldenburg, 2001
Neumarkt Galerie, Cologne, Germany
DETAILS:
Made from: fiber-reinforced plastic, balsa wood; painted with
polyester gelcoat
39 ft. 10 in. (12.1 m) high x 19 ft. (5.8 m) diameter;
* He placed the sculpture on the roof of the
mall. So it could become part of the
architecture around it.
* Through its location and shape, it draws
parallels church spires and the modern
church.
* The sculpture was commissioned by the
owners of the Neumarkt Galerie - a shopping
centre.
