Artist of the Month -Claes Oldenburg ​ Oldenburg is an American artist born in 1929. He was born in Sweden but moved to the United States as a baby. He is best known for his giant, soft sculptures, and massive metal sculptures of everyday objects. Claes Oldenburg was closely associated with the development of pop art in the United States during the 1960s. Pop Art- A genre of art that uses elements of popular ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ culture; which means it uses things that everyone ​ recognizes and is used to seeing in their everyday life. Although he is now an artist, he first attended and graduated in 1950 from Yale University, where journalism was his primary interest. For the next two years he worked as an apprentice reporter in Chicago before attending the Art Institute of Chicago. He then opened a studio to do illustrations for magazines. Oldenburg moved to New York City in 1956. The city fascinated him, particularly its everyday aspects: street life, store windows, advertising, and even trash littering the streets. He saw the artistic possibilities in these objects, and he turned his interest from painting to sculpture. In 1961 he created a collection of painted plaster copies of food, clothing, jewelry, and other items collectively entitled The Store. ​ ​ In 1962 Oldenburg began to create Happenings—experimental presentations involving people, objects, sound, and movement. For some of the Happenings he made giant objects of cloth stuffed with rags or paper. The 1962 version of The Store contained huge canvas-covered foam rubber sculptures of an ice ​ cream cone, a hamburger, and a slice of cake. Oldenburg began to incorporate monumental soft sculptures, made from stuffed vinyl or inflatable materials, the subjects of which were common items of American consumer life. These works, sagging with gravity, force the viewers to confront everyday objects in radically different circumstances. In 1965, Oldenburg began to design imaginary outdoor monuments, most of which were never realized, until the 1970s onward. He then focused his attention on large ​ outdoor public sculptures constructed with steel, such as his Free Stamp, in Ohio, Spoonbridge and Cherry, in Minneapolis, and Shuttlecocks in Missouri. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Oldenburg often collaborated with his wife, artist Coosje van Bruggen (Dutch/American, 1942–2009), on these large-scale projects. NOW CREATE! You can make anything you want but it MUST include something that is from everyday life. Like ​ Oldenburg’s objects. Here are some ideas if you are stuck! ● Draw an everyday object up really close so it FILLS (or even goes off ) your paper. ● Make a food sculpture, use legos, or clay or even laundry; use what you have! ● Take a “forced perspective photo” using a small object, so it looks like it is BIG, even though it’s not (this is tricky and challenging!) Here is an example → ● Create a painting or drawing of your favorite junk food snack. Pay extra attention to the logo of the brand. ● Use “pop”ular brand logos (cut from packages or advertisements etc) to make a pop collage. ● Anything else goes! Be creative and use your imagination, look around your life for inspiration. .