We are heartbroken to learn of the passing of Claes Oldenburg. He and wife Coosje van Bruggen created our gigantic Shuttlecocks that have become iconic Kansas City symbols. Oldenburg and his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, were selected to design a gigantic sculpture for the museum in The duo designed the sculptures imagining the museum as the badminton net, and the lawn as the field.
The sculptures were positioned as if they had landed on the opposite side of the net. Oldenburg was known for turning the mundane into the monumental through his outsized sculptures of a baseball bat, a clothespin and other objects.
Oldenburg died Monday morning in Manhattan, according to his daughter, Maartje Oldenburg. He had been in poor health since falling and breaking his hip a month ago.
The placement of those sculptures showed how his monument-sized items β though still provoking much controversy β took their place in front of public and corporate buildings as the establishment ironically championed the once-outsider art. The original version deteriorated and was replaced by a steel, aluminum and fiberglass version in another spot on the Yale campus in This, I think, is also a part of Chicago: a very factual and realistic object.
Now, the more buildings they tear down around here, the better it will get. Oldenburg was born in in Stockholm, Sweden, son of a diplomat. But young Claes pronounced klahs spent much of his childhood in Chicago, where his father served as Swedish consul general for many years. Oldenburg eventually became a U. He settled in New York by the late s, but at times has also lived in France and California.
