During his prolific 60-year career, Claes Oldenburg has used sculpture, collage, performance, and monumental public artworks to explore the mystery and power of such commonplace objects as a tube of lipstick, a bag of French fries, and a toilet seat. He changes the scale, shape, color, or texture of these familiar items, creating surprising and often humorous forms that encourage us to experience our environment differently. During the early 1960s, these works established Oldenburg as one of the leading practitioners of Pop Art. Today he is best known for his iconic public sculptures, such as the Walker’s Spoonbridge and Cherry (1985–1988), which dot urban landscapes throughout the United States and Europe.
The Store, Happenings, and Soft Sculptures
Born in Stockholm, Sweden, and raised in Chicago, Oldenburg moved to New York in 1956. His early works often commented on the new American passion for shopping, whether for groceries, clothing, or art. In The Store (1961), for example, he filled a vacant storefront with replicas of products such as shirts, shoes, slices of pie—all original works of art that he “mass produced” in the shop’s back room. Later in the 1960s, he wrote and produced several Happenings—live, mixed media performances—including World’s Fair II (1962), which included a group of stuffed muslin skyscrapers entitled Upside Down City. He also began making sculptures of consumer products out of soft materials such as vinyl, canvas, and fake fur. By 1970, Oldenburg was recognized as one of the most important artists of his generation and had been given solo exhibitions in Stockholm, New York, and London.
Public Art, Collaboration with Coosje van Bruggen, Spoonbridge and Cherry
In the mid-1970s, Oldenburg began collaborating with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen (1942–2009), on large-scale public projects. Their first commissions included Trowel I (1971–1976), an oversize garden tool that appears to be jammed into the earth in front of the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands, and Batcolumn (1977), an upright baseball bat of Cor-Ten steel and aluminum installed in front of an office building in downtown Chicago. These were followed by some three dozen outdoor public projects in cities ranging from Kansas City to Seoul. In 1985, the Walker commissioned the pair to make a work for the new Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Spoonbridge and Cherry, which was fabricated at two New England shipbuilding yards, is a whimsical water feature—the cherry’s stem emits a fine mist—that has become a beloved Minneapolis icon.
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