Practitioner research: Claes Oldenburg

Claes Oldenburg

Claes Oldenburg was born on January 28, 1929. He is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art sculptures, which usually feature very large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions of everyday objects.

Claes Oldenburg was born in Stockholm, Sweden; he was the son of a Swedish diplomat. As a child he and his family moved to United States in 1936, first to New York then, later, to Chicago where he graduated from the Latin School of Chicago. He studied at Yale University from 1946 to 1950, then returned to Chicago where he studied under the direction of Paul Wieghardt at the Art Institute of Chicago until 1954.

Whilst 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. His 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.

He moved back to New York City in 1956. There he met a lot of artists, including Jim Dine, Red Grooms, and Allan Kaprow, whose work incorporated theatrical aspects and provided an alternative to the abstract expressionism that had taken over much of the art scene at the current time.

The most memorable works of art created by Claes Oldenburg are the gigantic Sculptures he created, though quite large, they usually had various interactive capabilities. One of his early interactive sculptures was a soft sculpture of a tube of lipstick which would deflate unless a participant re-pumped air into it, this shows how he really got the public to join in with and enjoy his art and feel as if they were a part of it. In 1974, this sculpture, Lipstick that was attached to Caterpillar Tracks, was redesigned in a sturdier aluminium form; the giant lipstick being placed vertically atop tank treads as before. Originally installed in Beinecke Plaza at Yale, it now stands in the Morse College courtyard.

Many of Oldenburg's giant sculptures of mundane objects attracted public ridicule before being taken in as Quirky, insightful, and fun additions to public outdoor art.

In the 1960s he became associated with the Pop Art movement and attended many happenings, which were performance art related productions of that time. The name he gave to his own productions was "Ray Gun Theatre". His first wife -(1960–1970) Pat Muschinski who sewed many of his early soft sculptures, was a constant performer in his happenings. This humorous approach to art was at first ridiculed with the prevailing sensibility that, by its nature, art dealt with "profound" expressions or ideas. But Oldenburg's spirited art found first a place then a great popularity that endures to this day.

I chose to write about Claes Oldenburg as his work is similar in one way also to the work I am doing. The similarity is tat his work resembles everyday found or household objects and the work I am doing is based on found recyclable objects. Claes also looks at these objects in ways that they have unrecognized meanings and beauty, which is one of the reasons I chose to talk about his work.