GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Husband and wife artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, who have long worked as a team, confound expectations by elevating the humdrum experience of contemporary life to the monumental. Best known for their monumental, site-specific sculptures, their work follows the interests of the pop art movement, with wry replications of humble things transformed into enlarged, recognizable, yet nonfunctional everyday objects.
Claes Oldenburg, one of the best-known artists of the pop art movement, began his career in the late 1950s by staging Happenings, hybrid events of theater and art which were humorous, often raucous demonstrations of the absurdity of life. One of his first installations of objects, titled "The Store" — and his first museum Happening— took place in 1962 at the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts.
For each site-specific project, the two artists visit the community, searching for a proper symbol of the surroundings. "We look at the architecture, and at the cultural and political environment," Ms. van Bruggen says. "We find projects that fit — or go against — that environment." More than any other sculptors of the 20th century, Oldenburg and van Bruggen have broken down the barrier between high and low art.
Adapted from
Suzanne Weaver, "Stake Hitch," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Charles Venable (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 1997), 296.
NOTES
This note was reviewed by the curatorial intern for contemporary art in the fall of 2018, but not reviewed by the curator.
ASSOCIATED CONTENT CHUNKS (list applicable note links)
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
- Olden and van Bruggen~Peruse the official site of the artists.
- National Gallery of Art~Listen to the artists discuss their work. Lecture date is October 12, 1995.
- Chinati Foundation~See another Texas work by Oldenburg and van Bruggen.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES (digitized/non-digitized)
FUN FACTS
TEACHING IDEAS
RULES
set operator as OR
apply to objects where constituent_id equals 1324 AND 658
apply to constituents where id equals 658
apply to constituents where id equals 1324
Category
rules_operator
OR
General Description
Husband and wife artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, who have long worked as a team, confound expectations by elevating the humdrum experience of contemporary life to the monumental. Best known for their monumental, site-specific sculptures, their work follows the interests of the pop art movement, with wry replications of humble things transformed into enlarged, recognizable, yet nonfunctional everyday objects.
Claes Oldenburg, one of the best-known artists of the pop art movement, began his career in the late 1950s by staging Happenings, hybrid events of theater and art which were humorous, often raucous demonstrations of the absurdity of life. One of his first installations of objects, titled "The Store" — and his first museum Happening— took place in 1962 at the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts.
For each site-specific project, the two artists visit the community, searching for a proper symbol of the surroundings. "We look at the architecture, and at the cultural and political environment," Ms. van Bruggen says. "We find projects that fit — or go against — that environment." More than any other sculptors of the 20th century, Oldenburg and van Bruggen have broken down the barrier between high and low art.
Adapted from
Suzanne Weaver, "Stake Hitch," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Charles Venable (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 1997), 296.
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
(digitized/non-digitized)
Web Resources
- Olden and van Bruggen~Peruse the official site of the artists.
- National Gallery of Art~Listen to the artists discuss their work. Lecture date is October 12, 1995.
- Chinati Foundation~See another Texas work by Oldenburg and van Bruggen.
Notes
This note was reviewed by the curatorial intern for contemporary art in the fall of 2018, but not reviewed by the curator.
rules
Apply To
Constituents
id
Equals
658
Apply To
Constituents
id
Equals
1324
source file
artists_and_designers-0078.xml.nores