2. • Born in Sweden in 1929,
came to US as an child.
• 1956 - moved to New York
City, met Allan Kaprow
• 1960s staged performance
art "happenings” which
invite audience participation
• 60s became known as Pop
artist but he preferred the
term “objective
expressionism
• Zen Buddhism influence
• Since 1977 has
collaborated with wife
Examples of Oldenburg’s Happenings:
Coosje van Bruggen to
Stars in which a waiter carries a tray of
make large scale public
plastic “food” and spills it over audience.
sculptures
About the
artist
Store Days which combined theatre
performance and real transactions in a
“store”
3. The Store
In 1961 OIdenburg turned his
studio in Manhattan into a
shop like environment.
SUBJECTS
Featured brightly-painted
consumer items.
MEDIA
• Muslin
• plaster,
• chicken wire.
STYLE
• How would you describe
the STYLE of these
works?
4. The Store 1961
• How did ‘The Store’
challenge the art
hierarchy?
• Why do you think it
was influential for Pop
artists?
• In what ways does this
reflect the historical
CONTEXT?
5. The ‘abstract expressionist’
element
• Oldenburg uses drips and splatters like
the Ab-Ex painters
• However he sees them as an OBJECT
rather as a carrier of meaning / sign of the
artist’s ‘mark’
• Like Rauschenberg, feels his work is a
result of a relationship between himself,
an object and an event, i.e. gravity.
6. Pastry case 1 (1961-62)
• Spot the
desserts!
• Do you want to
eat these?
• Why or why not?
Materials: enamel
painted plaster
sculptures built
over a wire
frame.
Appetising or repulsive?
7. Oldenburg said…
“I am for an art that takes
its forms from the lines
of life itself, that twists
and extends and
accumulates and spits
and drips, and is as heavy
and coarse and blunt and
sweet and stupid as life
itself.”
Claes Oldenburg, Pie à La Mode 1962
Museum of Contemporary Art, LA. The
Muslin soaked in plaster over wire
frame, painted with enamel
8. Floor burger 1962
• Oldenburg said he “made symbols of my
time”. What kinds of meanings do these
symbols have?
• METAMORPHOSIS by changing scale
• Looking at this,what do you want to do?
Oldenburg: “a hamburger is a
structural piece of food. It is three
circles. Plus if you count the onion
and pickle it’s got more. It is
structure with a textured surface.”
FLOOR BURGER 1962 2m x
Painted sail cloth stuffed with foam
9. Floor Cone & Floor Cake
(The Store, 1962)
•
This Store was set
up in the Green
Gallery, NY.
•
How do you think
viewers would have
responded to these
works?
•
What do all these
objects have in
common?
•
http://smarthistory.org/cl
(discussion of Floor
Cake)
10. Robert Hughes on Oldenburg
• American artists responded to the SIZE of
modern life – high rises, massive billboards,
large food portions, huge cars, “To be an
American was to have too much most of the
time.” Following WWII they were one of the few
wealthy nations.
• They represented a culture of GLUT
• The Store was a PARODY of an art gallery
• Oldenburg said, “Almost all my art can be
related to the human body, to the human
experience.”
11. Soft machines 1963
• What is ironic about these
sculptures?
• Do they seem mass produced?
• What links
them to Pop
Art?
Soft Type writer, 1963
Soft Pay-Telephone, 1963. Vinyl filled with
kapok, mounted on painted wood panel, 46x
19 x 9”. Guggenheim Museum.
12. Objects “impregnated with
humanity”
• Critics call his sculptures
“anthropomorphic”
Four Soft Dormeyer Mixers 1965
• Phallic imagery is common
• Advertising also exploits
sexual associations of
certain objects
• In what ways are humans
and machines similar and
different?
Oldenburg: “art should be
concerned with the vulgar,
the proletarian, the
ordinary, the tasteless but
also instinctive or lifeaffirming”
13. Giant Soft Fan 1966
• “Gravity is my favourite creator”
• What is ABSURD about this
work?
• In what way does CHANCE play
a role in this art work?
• How does this work show the
idea of the artist collaborating
with his materials?
14. Soft toilet 1966
• Media : Wood, vinyl,
kapok, wire,
plexiglass on metal
stand and painted
wood base
• Whitney Museum
• Identify 3 aspects of
this work that make it
typical of Oldenburg.
15. Oldenburg’s iconography
•
•
•
•
American CONSUMER products e.g.
junk food - hamburgers, ice cream
cosmetics - toothpaste tubes, lip stick;
Home appliances - telephones,
typewriters, fan
• The “absurd” – a toilet
• What is art? Anything can be art!
• Element of KITSCH
• Things that are TRANSIENT – ie. They
do not last, part of a disposable culture
• Tap into basic HUMAN INSTINCTS –
e.g. hunger, sex appeal, aggression
16. Lipstick, Ascending on
Caterpillar Tracks (1969)
• What is the effect of
combining the lipstick
with a tank?
• What kind of symbol
do they make?
• What makes this a
typical Oldenburg
work?
17. Lipstick, Ascending
• “The lipstick is
adapted in size to the
original dimensions
of the tank
• Look like a lethal
weapon
• Both objects linked
by the power of
aggression (lip stick =
sexual aggression)
• Mirror the dynamics
of human movement
18. GROUP ACTIVITY:
After analysing 5 key words,
make a list of what you would
consider the main stylistic
characteristics of this artist.
19. Stylistic characteristics
• Large scale sculptures
• Subjects are often everyday objects from American
consumer culture
• However he makes the familiar unfamiliar by
• Transforming objects so viewers perceive them in
different ways – by changing the scale or changing
the material
• May involve an interactive element
• Contain a “human” quality
• Contain elements of humour / absurd
• Early works – bright colours, expressionist
application of paint
20. Geometric Mouse (Scale C, 1976)
• 5 versions in different sizes.
• Original idea came from
mouse mask used in early
60s
• Further developed form after
visit Disney studios
• Parts can be positioned in
many different ways
• What other associations
come to your mind when you
look at this sculpture?
• In what ways does this
challenge the conventions of
sculpture?
21. Oldenburg on
‘Geometric Mouse’
• "Mickey Mouse, as form, is
important in the American
range of forms. The mouse's
personality or nostalgia need
not be discussed. The form
may derive from the early film
camera and that is how I
arrived at this version wherein
the 'eyes' operate as shutters,
represented by old-fashioned
window shades. Such shades
never quite roll up, which
accounts for the sleepy look."
22. Giant Clothes
pin (1976)
• Sculpture outside
Philadelphia city hall
• Why is this work a
visual pun?
• Oldenburg said, “I
am for an art that is
erotical, mystical,
that does something
other than sit on its
ass in a museum.”
23. Dropped Ice Cream Cone
(2001)
• Collaboration with wife
Dutch/American pop sculptor
Coosje Van Bruggen
• In Cologne, Germany on top of
a shopping centre
• Icecream cone - a symbol of
an affluent society.
• However artists have
reordered it so the cone is
upside down, enormous
melting and collapsing.
suggests the excesses and
vulgarity of life in the
developed Western world?
24. Summary
Key interests of the artist
•
•
•
•
Making objects seem human
Whimsical humour / Sense of the absurd
Enjoyment of multiple meanings
Metamorphosis – showing things in flux,
objects with changed shape / size
• Integrating art with everyday life
• Challenging the nature of art, and high
art / low art divide.
• Perception. Making the familiar strange
25. Oldenburg’s aims cont..
• We are so used to seeing objects as
commodities and even relate to ART this
way. Oldenburg wants his art to interact with
life itself, to do something other than “sit on
its ass in a museum.”
• His works are not cold and impersonal.
• His method and materials shows the imprint
of life and his emotion.
• What concerns does Oldenburg share
with other Pop artists? In what ways is
he different? (5 min – brainstorm)
26. Hamburger,
Popsicle, Price
(1962)
In pairs, come up with 3 main
stylistic differences between
Oldenburg’s work and Warhol’s
work (below). Explain how each
image shows the ideas of the
artist.
27. Lichtenstein’s ‘Look Mickey’ v.
Oldenburg’s ‘Geometric Mouse’
In pairs: discuss SIMILIARITIES and DIFFERENCES in the style of
these works
Explain the DIFFERENCES by referring to the IDEAS of the ARTIST
