Dimensions: 50 x 42 cm
Origin:
gift from the artist, 1990s.
collection of Andy Rotterberg
DESA Unicum, 2017
institutional collection, Poland
Biography
American sculptor of Swedish descent, known primarily for his installations in public spaces, which are scaled replicas of everyday objects. His realizations also include soft, inflatable sculptures of ordinary objects, which the artist depicted in the form of light decomposition. He made many of his works together with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, who died in 2009 after 32 years of their marriage. Oldenburg currently lives and works in New York. His father was a Swedish diplomat working in the United States. Oldenburg grew up in Chicago - he studied literature at Yale University from 1946-50, and later studied art at the University of Chicago. Before embarking on a career as an artist, he worked as a reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago. in 1953 he was granted U.S. citizenship, and three years after that he moved to New York, working part-time at the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration. The idea of soft sculptures came to him in 1957, when he made a loosely hanging composition of a woman's stocking stuffed with crumpled newspapers. In 1959 Oldenburg began making a series of objects, figures and signs from papier-mâché, expanding the spectrum of materials to include food and cheap clothing. His first solo exhibition, which included the aforementioned objects, was held at the Judson Gallery in Washington Square in 1959. In the 1960s Oldenburg joined the Pop Art movement, soon becoming one of its most interesting artists. His criticism of American consumerism moved him to a number of activities bordering on happenings, performance and art installation. In December 1961, he rented a storefront on Manhattan's Lower East Side, where he displayed sculptures in the window that were grossed-out and shapeless versions of popular consumer goods. W
