Claes Oldenburg is Dead at 93

Claes Oldenburg died yesterday at his home/studio in New York.

On his work:

As he focused more and more on sculpture, he began increasing the scale of his work, taking as his starting point ordinary objects like hamburgers, ice cream cones and household appliances and then enlarging them to unfamiliar, often imposing dimensions.

One of his most famous installations, erected in 1976 — the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence — is “Clothespin,” a 45-foot-high, 10-ton black steel sculpture of precisely what the title indicates, complete with a metal spring that appropriately evokes the number 76. The work stands in stark contrast to conventional public sculpture, which Mr. Oldenburg, impersonating a municipal official, said was supposed to involve “bulls and Greeks and lots of nekkid broads.”

I was just in DC and snapped this image of his Typewriter Eraser at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. I like tracking down his public sculpture when visiting new cities, like a nerdy little treasure hunt. RIP.

Claes Oldenburg

07.19.2022Tagged with:    

New Christo Project in Colorado

The new project by the artist Christo has been approved by federal regulators. Christo plans to install suspended panels of fabric over the Arkansas River in Colorado.

The project, “Over the River,” will include eight suspended panel segments totaling 5.9 miles along a 42-mile stretch of the river, about three hours southwest of Denver. Construction could begin next year, pending final local approvals, with the goal being a two-week display of the work as early as August 2014.

11.08.2011Tagged with:    

Woman Collides With a Picasso

From the NY Times:

On Friday afternoon a woman taking an adult education class at the Metropolitan Museum of Art accidentally lost her balance and fell into “The Actor,” a rare Rose Period Picasso, tearing the canvas about six inches along its lower right-hand corner.

With the amount of traffic through those galleries, it’s a wonder that this sort of thing doesn’t happen more often.

01.25.2010Tagged with:    

Space Agencies

French photographer Vincent Fournier has produced some wonderful images of the Chinese, Russian and US space agencies, including their earthly training grounds.

Fournier astronaut

More of Fournier’s work can be found at his website.

(via snarkmarket)

01.11.2010Tagged with:    

Times Square to Art Square

The aim of the Times Square to Art Square project is to replace all advertising on billboards in Times Square with works of art. If it pans out, artists will upload artwork to the website and visitors will donate money to the artists that impress them. How much money an artist has donated to them will determine how much exposure time they get in Times Square.

12.31.2009Tagged with:    

The Americans

The Americans, by Robert Frank

Robert Frank’s masterpiece, The Americans, was first published fifty years ago in the US. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is observing the anniversary with an exhibition of all the images from the book, plus other photos, contact sheets and a short film by Frank.

The Americans contains 83 photographs made on road trips across the country.

Looking at America, Frank took in things others had seen but failed to note. Some were banal: jukeboxes, the ubiquity of flags, the many manifestations of automotive culture. Other elements – vaguer, abstract, even sinister – were anything but banal: a sense of isolation, the place of African-Americans in US society, a tension between openness and confinement. The latter is evident in everything from the sweep of a Southwestern landscape to the flickering image on a TV screen.

It’s a beautiful book, and many of its themes will still resonate with viewers 50 years later. The exhibit will be up at the Met through January third. I’ll be making a trip to NYC at the beginning of the year and I’m looking forward to seeing them all in person.

11.30.2009Tagged with:    

Jeanne-Claude, Collaborator With Christo, Dies at 74

“We want to create works of art of joy and beauty, which we will build because we believe it will be beautiful,” Jeanne-Claude said in a 2002 interview. “The only way to see it is to build it. Like every artist, every true artist, we create them for us.”

RIP.

11.20.2009Tagged with: