Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburgis 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. Van Bruggen died in 2009 after 32 years of marriage. Oldenburg lives and works in New York...
NationalitySwedish
ProfessionSculptor
Date of Birth28 January 1929
CityStockholm, Sweden
CountrySweden
A life cycle can be imposed on an object. An object can be very energetic and active, and then it has a dying phase and a phase of decomposition.
My single-minded aim is to give existence to fantasy.
My struggle has been to return painting to the tangible object, which is like returning the personality to touching and feeling the world around it, to offset the tendency to vagueness and abstraction. To remind people of practical activity, to suggest the sense and not to escape from the senses.
'Clothespin' was the first city monument on a large scale that could compete with the architecture around it.
I like to treat paint as material - to daub it, drop it, let it slide. There was Action Painting, but I also compare it to paint effects found on the streets. This approach is superimposed on a sculptural surface that is also 'painterly.'
If you really want to be an artist, you search yourself, and you find a lot of it comes from earlier times. I have pretty much built the work around my experiences. When I've moved from one place to another, the work has changed.