So everybody knows Claes Oldenburg, pop sculptor extraordinaire. His pieces are everywhere: misplaced foodstuffs among a set of skyscrapers, clothespins, nails, and icepicks plunged into parks, blown-up fire hydrants, off kilter and waning. His “Store” was certainly a fantastic development in public art interventionism and consumerist critique (or applause?). I want to briefly shed a wee spotlight on his public art proposals. I love the idea of proposition as art, especially the more ridiculous and impossible it is. Oldenburg made hundreds if not thousands of these proposals, jotted on scrap paper, silly ideas that speak to his sense of humor and silliness, a man who did not take himself or his work to seriously. Another artist to work in this vein is Thomas Schutte, I feel he took over from where Oldenburg left off, and has since taken the idea to more elaborate and fantastic heights.
But now for Oldenburg:
YESSSSS!!!