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.

Practitioner research: Christo & Jeanne Claude

Jeanne Caude and Christo

Christo

Christo was born in Gabrovo, Bulgaria. His father, Vladimir Yavachev, was a scientist, and his mother, Tsveta Dimitrova, born in Macedonia, was the secretary at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia. Professors from the Academy who visited his family observed Christo's artistic talent while he was still of a very young age.

Christo studied art at the Sofia Academy from 1953 to 1956, and went to Prague, Czechoslovakia until 1957, when he left for West by bribing a railway official and stowing away with several other individuals onboard a train transporting medicine and medical supplies to Austria.

Christo quickly settled in Vienna, and enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. After only one semester there, he traveled to Geneva and moved to Paris in 1958. As a result of his flight, he lost his Bulgarian citizenship and became a stateless person. His life in Paris was characterized by financial hardship and social isolation, which was worsened by his difficulty learning the French language. He earned money by painting portraits, which he likened to prostitution and signed with his family name "Javachef" while his early works were signed "Christo".

Jeanne Claude

Jeanne-Claude was born in Casablanca, Morocco where her French military father was stationed. Her mother, Précilda, was 17 when she married Jeanne-Claude's father, Major Léon Denat. Précilda and Léon Denat divorced shortly after Jeanne-Claude was born, and Précilda remarried three times. Jeanne-Claude earned a baccalaureate in Latin and philosophy in 1952 from the University of Tunis
During World War II, Jeanne-Claude lived with her father's family while her mother fought in the French Resistance. In 1946, Précilda married the influential General Jacques de Guillebon. The family lived in Berne from 1948 to 1951 then in Tunisia from 1952 to 1957, when they returned to Paris.

Christo & Jeanne Claude

Christo and Jeanne-Claude were born on the same date. They first met in Paris in October 1958. Their works were credited to just "Christo" until 1994 when the outdoor works and large indoor installations were retroactively credited to "Christo and Jeanne-Claude". They flew in separate planes: in case one crashed, the other could continue their work.


Jeanne-Claude died, aged 74, on November 18, 2009, from complications of a brain aneurysm.

Although their work is visually impressive and often controversial because it is so big, the artists have repeatedly denied that their projects contain any deeper meaning than what the viewer sees.

The purpose of their art is to create works of art or joy and beauty and to create new ways of seeing familiar landscapes.

Art critic David Bourdon has described Christo's wrappings as a "revelation through concealment." To his critics Christo replies, "I am an artist, and I have to have courage ... Do you know that I don't have any artworks that exist? They all go away when they're finished. Only the preparatory drawings, and collages are left, giving my works an almost legendary character. I think it takes much greater courage to create things to be gone than to create things that will remain."



One piece of work that I like in particular was called wrapped trees. The project was started on the 13th of November 1998 in Fondation Beyeler and Berower Park in Riehen, Switzerland. 178 trees were wrapped with 55000 square meters of woven polyester fabric, which is used every winter in Japan to protect the trees from frost and heavy snow. They also used 14.35 meters of rope; it was completed on November the 22nd.
The height of the trees varied from 1 meter to 25 meters. As they have always done, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have paid the expenses of the project themselves through the sale of original works to museums, private collectors and galleries. They do not accept sponsorship of any kind.

Christo and Jeanne Claude worked with trees for many years and the “Wrapped Trees” in Riehen were the result of 32 years of effort. I think the following statement is the message or idea that Christo and Jeanne Claude were trying to portray.

Statement by the artists

“The temporality of a work of art creates a feeling of fragility, vulnerability and an urgency to be seen, as well as a presence of the missing, because we know it will be gone tomorrow.

The quality of love and tenderness that human beings have towards what will not last - for instance the love and tenderness we have for childhood and our lives - is a quality we want to give to our work as an additional aesthetic quality.”

To me Christo and Jeanne Claude’s artwork is all about bringing people together; wherever they work they make their art not just something interesting to look at but a once in a lifetime experience for the local people as they also get to partake in the creation. All of the materials used are recycled and put to use in other ways or given to the people involved.

I think Christo and Jeanne Claude’s work has a link to mine in the way that I am working with recycled materials and trying to bring people together to work together in building something new. They also bring people together with their work and then recycle or reuse the materials they work with. Their work is also always temporary as is mine.

I think the Wrapped Trees give off a wonderful variation of colour and there are many beautiful shades and tones when the sunlight hits the translucent materials. It makes the atmosphere around the park really warm and happy. The shadows inside the wrapping also create many interesting and intricate lines which create beautiful patterns at different times of the day.

Evaluation

How successful do you think your final production is?

I think my project is moderately successful as I had many problems to overcome. I had to change my idea many times because of communication difficulties with the school I was going to work with; I think I worked well with what I had. I also think I followed the brief well and I tried to get the message across as well as I could in my film. I think I worked well under the pressure and as my partner wasn’t local; however, I think I could have improved in a few areas as I rushed part of it such as the film editing process, which was difficult for me as I hadn’t used the software in over a year and wasn’t that confident with it. Overall I think It went well despite all of the problems I faced and I think my partner was moderately happy with it.

What did your partner think about the production?

My Partner was John Pendlington From the children’s scrap store and I think he was quite pleased with it overall. This is what he had to say…”We loved the "Ready, Steady, Cook” concept using scrap materials presented to three creative chefs and the BBC “Vision On” type music. It is very engaging and watchable, and gets the message across by drawing on scrap items a novel use of colour plastic and food packaging. Will help companies rethink about their waste materials.” I think John is pleased with this as he mentions that it will help companies rethink about their waste materials, which was the point of the video entirely.

How well did you Interact with your partner?

We met around 3 times during the process as they’re based in Bristol so it was difficult. However, We communicated via email whenever we wanted to check up on something or get feedback on ideas. I think I interacted well with my partner as there were no communication problems and whenever I wasn’t sure with something I just had to email him to make sure my project would be suitable and was following the brief.

What practical problems did you face during the process?

One of the only practical problems during my project was communication. Originally I was going to work with a primary school and work with the children, however, we kept emailing them and they must have been very busy as they never got back to us in time for us to do our project. I think another practical problem was that we had to get scrap from the scrap store to the college. We wanted to use the college mini bus but we couldn’t find someone to drive it for a long time, which delayed us for quite a while. Eventually though we found someone and were able to collect our scrap.

How did you overcome these problems?

To overcome the lack of communication problem I improvised and thought instead of using the children in my film I could just use students from my course. They were all willing to help and created things from the scrap materials just like the children would have, so my problem was resolved.

Considering your partner’s feedback: How would you do things differently next time?

If I were to do it again considering my partners feed back I would probably spend longer on editing my film as I think my material was good but I could have spent longer smoothing out my film on final cut pro

What new skills did you learn (Practical and Business skills)?

I learned a lot of practical business skills such as better communication skills and how to write up and hold meetings in the correct form.

What things should be considered when working with an external partner?

You should think about what they want from you to help their business and try to work as closely to the brief given as you can. You also have to think about how far away you are from your partner as it helps to be closer and have more regular meetings.

Compare your work to a similar campaign. What have you done particularly well? What have you missed? Etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8BwXp7ICs0&feature=related

This is the video that I’m comparing my work to; they use the same slogan as the scrap store, which is reduce, reuse, recycle. I think my video is very different from this one, as they have used an animated cartoon character to promote the use of recycling and trying to convince people to take care of the planet. I think this is a successful video and it gets the message across clearly. I think my video does portray the message that I want it to well but I could benefit in using more repetition of my message to really influence people.

Completing my film

I have finally finished my film, using final cut pro i managed to put all of my film into sequence and add film transitions, effects and music. I had a few problems with the music, firstly it took me a long time to find a piece of music that was royalty free and that was long enough. In the end i ended up using music from the college media library and using ins and outs to cut and chop the music to fit my film, this was a problem because it was a short clip and i didn't get it to run through as smoothly as i wanted because of all of the layers. overall however i think my film will be moderately successful and i hope that it meets the brief sufficiently.

Film!

Last week i started to film my project i decided to use three people from my course and film them building fun things out of scrap. I filmed the whole project on one camera that just kept rolling and was one long shot; i also used a second camera to film several different shots up close and individual. I think the filming process went well because i only filmed 12 minutes of footage and got everything done without any problems. the next step for my project is to edit the film, i have used final cut pro to organize the film sequence so far and i next need to add music and effects to complete m y film.

New Ideas

originally when working for the scrap store we were meant to be taking the scrap to a school to complete our projects and make films about why we need more scrap with the children. However, communications with the school failed and they puled out therefore we are changing the plan and carrying on with our filming ideas but instead using people off of our course to help make and create our ideas. We then have to edit and complete our films and have them finished before another meeting with the scrapstore.

Another Scrapstore Visit

Today we went with college in the mini van to the scrapstore in Bristol. We gathered all of the scrap we need for the school visit, however, communications with the primary school have stopped as people are very busy so i may have to rethink about this part of my project.

We have thought instead about doing our projects but building the outcomes our selves thinking about what the children would have built and then show them to lecturers as if we went along with the original plan. Instead of going to a primary school and using children I am going to use students from my group and carry on with my idea using them.

On the visit to the scrap store I got al of the scrap i need to continue with my new idea .