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Claes Oldenburg

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Claus Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg 2012
Born
Claus Oldenburg

(1929-01-28) January 28, 1929 (age 95)
Stockholm, Sweden
NationalityAmerican
EducationLatin School of Chicago,
Art Institute of Chicago,
Yale University
Known forSculpture, Public Art
MovementPop Art

Claes Oldenburg (born January 28, 1929) is an American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions of everyday objects. Many of his works were made in collaboration with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, who died in 2009 after 32 years of marriage. Oldenburg lives and works in New York.

Early life and education

Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks

Claes Oldenburg was born on January 28, 1929 in Stockholm, the son of Gösta Oldenburg[1] and his wife Sigrid Elisabeth née Lindforss.[2] His father was then a Swedish diplomat stationed in New York and in 1936 was appointed Consul General of Sweden to Chicago where Oldenburg grew up, attending the Latin School of Chicago. He studied literature and art history at Yale University[3] from 1946 to 1950, then returned to Chicago where he took classes at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. While further developing his craft, he worked as a reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He also opened his own studio and, in 1953, became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1956, he moved to New York, working part-time in the library of the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration.[4]

Work

Oldenburg's first recorded sales of artworks were at the 57th Street Art Fair in Chicago, where he sold 5 items for a total price of $25.[5] He moved back to New York City in 1956. There he met a number of artists, including Jim Dine, Red Grooms, and Allan Kaprow, whose Happenings incorporated theatrical aspects and provided an alternative to the abstract expressionism that had come to dominate much of the art scene. Oldenburg began toying with the idea of soft sculpture in 1957, when he completed a free-hanging piece made from a woman's stocking stuffed with newspaper. (The piece was untitled when he made it but is now referred to as Sausage.)[6]

In 1959, Oldenburg started to make figures, signs and objects out of papier-mâché, sacking and other rough materials, followed in 1961 by objects in plaster and enamel based on items of food and cheap clothing.[4] Oldenburg's first show that included three-dimensional works, in May 1959, was at the Judson Gallery, at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square.[7] During this time, artist Robert Beauchamp described Oldenburg as "brilliant," due to the reaction that the pop artist brought to a "dull" abstract expressionist period.[8]

In the 1960s Oldenburg became associated with the Pop Art movement and created many so-called happenings, which were performance art related productions of that time. The name he gave to his own productions was "Ray Gun Theater". The cast of colleagues who appeared in his performances of included artists Lucas Samaras, Tom Wesselman, Carolee Schneemann, Oyvind Fahlstrom and Richard Artschwager, dealer Annina Nosei, critic Barbara Rose, and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer.[6] His first wife (1960–1970) Patty Mucha, who sewed many of his early soft sculptures, was a constant performer in his happenings. This brash, often humorous, approach to art was at great odds with the prevailing sensibility that, by its nature, art dealt with "profound" expressions or ideas. But Oldenburg's spirited art found first a niche then a great popularity that endures to this day. In December 1961, he rented a store on Manhattan's Lower East Side to house "The Store," a month-long installation he had first presented at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York, stocked with sculptures roughly in the form of consumer goods.[6]

Oldenburg moved to Los Angeles in 1963 "because it was the most opposite thing to New York I could think of".[6] That same year, he conceived AUT OBO DYS, performed in the parking lot of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in December 1963. In 1965 he turned his attention to drawings and projects for imaginary outdoor monuments. Initially these monuments took the form of small collages such as a crayon image of a fat, fuzzy teddy bear looming over the grassy fields of New York's Central Park (1965)[9] and Lipsticks in Piccadilly Circus, London (1966).[10] In 1967, New York city cultural adviser Sam Green realized Oldenburg's first outdoor public monument; Placid Civic Monument took the form of a Conceptual performance/action behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, with a crew of gravediggers digging a 6-by-3-foot rectangular hole in the ground.[3] In 1969, Oldenberg contributed a drawing to the Moon Museum.

Many of Oldenburg's large-scale sculptures of mundane objects elicited public ridicule before being embraced as whimsical, insightful, and fun additions to public outdoor art.[citation needed] Sculptures, though quite large, often have interactive capabilities. One such interactive early sculpture was a soft sculpture of a tube of lipstick which would deflate unless a participant re-pumped air into it. In 1974, this sculpture, Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, was redesigned in a sturdier aluminum form, the giant lipstick being placed vertically atop tank treads. Originally installed in Beinecke Plaza at Yale, it now resides in the Morse College courtyard.

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Typewriter Eraser, Scale X, 1999, painted stainless steel and fiberglas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

From the early 1970s Oldenburg concentrated almost exclusively on public commissions.[10] His first public work, "Three-Way Plug" came on commission from Oberlin College with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.[11] His collaboration with Dutch/American writer and art historian Coosje van Bruggen dates from 1976. Their first collaboration came when Oldenburg was commissioned to rework Trowel I, a 1971 sculpture of an oversize garden tool, for the grounds of the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands.[12] Oldenburg has officially signed all the work he has done since 1981 with both his own name and van Bruggen's.[6] In 1988, the two created the iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota that remains a staple of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden as well as a classic image of the city. Typewriter Eraser, Scale X (1999) is in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. Another well known construction is the Free Stamp in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. This Free Stamp has an energetic cult following.[citation needed]

In addition to freestanding projects, they occasionally contributed to architectural projects, among them two Los Angeles projects in collaboration with architect Frank O. Gehry: Toppling Ladder With Spilling Paint, which was installed at Loyola Law School in 1986, and Binoculars, Chiat/Day Building, completed in Venice in 1991;.[6] The couple's collaboration with Gehry also involved a return to performance for Oldenburg when the trio presented Il Corso del Coltello, in Venice, Italy, in 1985; other characters were portrayed by Germano Celant and Pontus Hultén.[13] "Coltello" is the source of "Knife Ship," a large-scale sculpture that served as the central prop; it was later seen in Los Angeles in 1988 when Oldenburg, Van Bruggen and Gehry presented Coltello Recalled: Reflections on a Performance at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center and the exhibition Props, Costumes and Designs for the Performance "Il Corso del Coltello" at Margo Leavin Gallery.[6]

In 2001, Oldenburg and van Bruggen created 'Dropped Cone', a huge inverted ice cream cone, on top of a shopping center in Cologne, Germany.[14] Installed at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2011, Paint Torch is a towering 53-foot-high pop sculpture of a paintbrush, capped with bristles that are illuminated at night. The sculpture is installed at a daring 60-degree angle, as if in the act of painting.[15]

Exhibitions

Oldenburg’s first one-man show in 1959, at the Judson Gallery in New York, included figurative drawings and papier-mâché sculptures.[10] He was honored with a solo exhibition of his work at the Moderna Museet (organized by Pontus Hultén), in 1966; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1969; and with a retrospective organized by Germano Celant at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,[16] New York, in 1995 (travelling to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn; and Hayward Gallery, London). In 2002 the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York held a retrospective of the drawings of Oldenburg and Van Bruggen; the same year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York exhibited a selection of their sculptures on the roof of the museum.[3]

Oldenburg is represented by The Pace Gallery in New York and Margo Leavin Gallery in Los Angeles.

Recognition

In 1989, Oldenburg won the Wolf Prize in Arts. In 2000, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.[17] Oldenburg has also received honorary degrees from Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1970; Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, in 1979; Bard College, New York, in 1995; and Royal College of Art, London, in 1996, as well as the following awards: Brandeis University Sculpture Award, 1971; Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture, 1972; Art Institute of Chicago, First Prize Sculpture Award, 72nd American Exhibition, 1976; Medal, American Institute of Architects, 1977; Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Prize for Sculpture, Duisburg, Germany, 1981; Brandeis University Creative Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, The Jack I. and Lillian Poses Medal for Sculpture, 1993; Rolf Schock Foundation Prize, Stockholm, Sweden, 1995. He is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters since 1975 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1978.[18]

Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen have together received honorary degrees from California College of the Arts, San Francisco, California, in 1996; University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, England, in 1999; Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2005; the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan, in 2005, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 2011. Awards of their collaboration include the Distinction in Sculpture, SculptureCenter, New York (1994); Nathaniel S. Saltonstall Award, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1996); Partners in Education Award, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2002); and Medal Award, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2004).[18]

In her 16-minute, 16mm film Manhattan Mouse Museum (2011), artist Tacita Dean captured Oldenburg in his studio as he gently handles and dusts the small objects that line his bookshelves. The film is less about the artist’s iconography than the embedded intellectual process that allows him to transform everyday objects into remarkable sculptural forms.[19]

I LOVE PIZZA

Art market

Oldenburg's sculpture Typewriter Eraser (1976), the third piece from an edition of three, was sold for $2.2 million at Christie's New York in 2009.[20]

Gallery

  • Dropped Cone (2001) by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Situated on top of a shopping centre in the Neumarkt area of Cologne, Germany.
    Dropped Cone (2001) by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Situated on top of a shopping centre in the Neumarkt area of Cologne, Germany.
  • Giant Pool Balls (1977) by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen for Skulptur Projekte Münster, Münster.
    Giant Pool Balls (1977) by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen for Skulptur Projekte Münster, Münster.
  • Pencil signature of Claes Oldenburg from 1990.
    Pencil signature of Claes Oldenburg from 1990.

Books

  • Oldenburg, Claes Log May 1974 - August 1976, Stuttgard: edition hansjorg mayer, 1976 (Two volume boxed set: "Photo Log" and "Press Log").
  • Busch, Julia M., A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s (The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia; Associated University Presses: London, 1974) ISBN 0-87982-007-1
  • Axsom, Richard H., Printed Stuff: Prints, Poster, and Ephemera by Claes Oldenburg A Catalogue Raisonne 1958–1996 (Hudson Hills Press: 1997) ISBN 1-55595-123-6
  • Oldenburg, Claes Raw Notes: Documents and Scripts of the Performances: Stars, Moveyhouse, Massage, The Typewriter, with annotations by the author. (The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design: Halifax, 2005) ISBN 0-919616-43-7
  • Gianelli, Ida and Beccaria, Marcella (editors) Claes Oldenburg Coosje van Bruggen: Sculpture by the Way Fundació Joan Miró 2007
  • Haskell, Barbara. Claes Oldenburg. Pasadena, CA: Pasadena Art Museum, 1971.
  • Valentin, Eric, Claes Oldenburg, Coosje van Bruggen. Le grotesque contre le sacré, Paris, collection Art et artistes, Gallimard, 2009. ISBN 978-2-07-078627-5
  • Valentin, Eric, Claes Oldenburg et Coosje van Bruggen. La sculpture comme subversion de l'architecture (1981-1997), Dijon, collection Inflexion, Les presses du réel, 2012 ISBN 978-2-84066-450-5
  • Höchdorfer, Achim, Claes Oldenburg: The Sixties (Prestel: USA, 2012) ISBN 3791352059
  • Thalacker, Donald W. "The Place of Art in the World of Architecture." Chelsea House Publishers, New York, 1980. ISBN 0-87754-098-5.

References

  1. ^ "NY Times". NY Times. 1992-04-01. Retrieved 2014-04-29.
  2. ^ Sigrid Oldenburg. "waatp.se". waatp.se. Retrieved 2014-04-29.
  3. ^ a b c Claes Oldenburg Guggenheim Collection.
  4. ^ a b Claes Oldenburg Tate.
  5. ^ David McCracken, "The Art Fair That's Been In the Picture the Longest", Chicago Tribune, June 5th, 1987, page 3
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Kristine McKenna (July 2, 1995), When Bigger Is Better: Claes Oldenburg has spent the past 35 years blowing up and redefining everyday objects, all in the name of getting art off its pedestal Los Angeles Times.
  7. ^ Claes Oldenburg, "Remembering Judson House," New York: Judson Memorial Church, p. 292
  8. ^ Paul Cummings (1975). "Oral history interview with Robert Beauchamp, 1975 Jan. 16". Oral history interview. Archives of American Art. Retrieved 30 Jun 2011.
  9. ^ Christopher Knight (August 6, 1995), The Percolating Mind of Oldenburg : A retrospective shows how ideas from early in a career can cook for decades, before emerging to enshrine the mundane Los Angeles Times.
  10. ^ a b c Claes Oldenburg Museum of Modern Art, New York.
  11. ^ Duffes, Melissa. "Oldenburg's First Commissioned Public Sculpture Returns to AMAM". Oberlin College. Retrieved 12 October 2013.
  12. ^ Carol Kino (January 13, 2009), Coosje van Bruggen, Sculptor, Dies at 66 New York Times.
  13. ^ Claes Oldenburg: Props, Costumes and Designs for the Performance "Il Corso del Coltello", January 9 - February 13, 1988 Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles.
  14. ^ "Dropped Cone". Oldenburgvanbruggen.com. Retrieved 2014-04-29.
  15. ^ "Oldenburg's Paint Torch | Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts | Museum and School | 1805". Pafa.org. Retrieved 2014-04-29.
  16. ^ John Russell (March 6, 1995), Oldenburg Again: Whimsy and Latent Humanity New York Times.
  17. ^ Lifetime Honors – National Medal of Arts[dead link]
  18. ^ a b Oldenburg Biography Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.
  19. ^ Tacita Dean: Five Americans, May 6 - July 1, 2012 New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York.
  20. ^ Claes Oldenburg, Typewriter Eraser (1976) Christie's Post War and Contemporary Evening Sale, 13 May 2009.

External links

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