And don’t forget his stop frame live animation “Fat Feet.”
> On Jul 19, 2022, at 7:52 PM, Molly Hankwitz <mollyhankw...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > dear d.garcia, > > thank you for posting this manifesto/poem. i read that Oldenburg had died > yesterday. another legend to say goodbye to. unfortunately, artists get > recognized and then they get interpreted, frequently badly by curators, > buyers, art historians and theorists who place them and put them. Often what > is said has nothing to do with why or how the artist did what they did and > then conceptually, everyone went against this problem and wanted to > self-represent so as to be understood, or so that they would not be > misunderstood and then were misunderstood years later when the "simplicity" > of making material objects produced less dissonance. thank you for publishing > his own words. > > his art can be seen as "bloated corporate pop art" - but, i'd like to credit > him with having made art more accessible to people, and for bridging gaps in > low-high thinking about art, and certainly as a welcome counter move to AbEX > bravado, even with his exaggerated scale. > > today his iconic works can and should be critiqued for their benign, > mid-century modernist appeal, maybe. nationalist? colonialist? banal? > white-bred? maybe...democratic...i'd like to think more along these lines... > pie, baseball, hamburgers - there is nothing edgy about these objects and by > today's critical standards they may even appear to likeable to be art. not > half the critical wit of Duane Hanson, but then, which one would you put in > your yard? if you have a yard...he made many of the 'bloated' pieces in the > early 1960s right about the time of this text you sent. i am going to give > this to my students > > Oldenburg brought a non-intimidating abstraction to art - by appealing to > ordinary things and people and at a monumental scale. He boosted the little > guy or gal; the one who made the pie with meringue. They are ordinary and > democratic. There is something to be said for that as lasting monumental > mementos of what may now be a failing democracy. > > The baseball bat in Chicago is hollow. So tall. Rusting. Admirably iconic > engineering achievement in this way, and yet, a kind of surreal Magritte's > comb amidst smaller buildings and structures. Left behind by a giant player. > > You can say, why make an icon like that, but I think it is more a relic that > no one else thought to make. It doesn't exactly celebrate baseball, more the > form of the bat. the giant diaper pin at the deYoung is similarly. Not an > orgiastic nod to diaper-changing, rather, it is about the peculiar form of > abstraction that occurs when something is oversized and maybe it is a > monument to the decades before Pampers! > > soft sculpture pieces are made from toxic awful materials probably, but i > still like them. > > lastly, the Ray Gun Museum is brilliant, as is the Mouse Museum. These works > were so evocative when I saw them in New York in about 1987. > > early installation of a slanted banal motel room is also brilliant. forgot > title. > > RIP Claes Oldenburg - he left so much behind to grace the landscape. > > Benign can be a good thing > > molly > > > >> On Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 6:14 AM <d.gar...@new-tactical-research.co.uk> wrote: >> Yesterday at a ripe old age of 93 Claes Oldenburg died. For those who >> may know him only as a purveyor of bloated corporate pop art of his >> later years may be surprised just how radical he was when he started out >> and just how different he was from the pop-artists who bought >> uncritically into consumerist ethos. His early ‘floppy’ sculptures ( >> constructed largely by his wife who got little recognition) are raw and >> challenging. His drawings are some of the most vivid of the era. But to >> get a real flavour of his outlook you can do no better than his >> manifesto “I Am For…” 1961. Sixty years later it still rings true. >> >> I Am For… (Statement, 1961) >> I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something >> other than sit on its ass in a museum. >> I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given >> the chance of having a starting point of zero. >> I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap and still >> comes out on top. >> I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or >> violent, or whatever is necessary. >> I am for all art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that >> twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and >> coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself. >> I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap painting >> signs or hallways. >> I am for art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in >> the sky. >> I am for art that spills out of an old man’s purse when he is bounced >> off a passing fender. >> I am for the art out of a doggie’s mouth, falling five stories from the >> roof. >> I am for the art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper. >> I am for an art that joggles like everyone’s knees, when the bus >> traverses an excavation. >> I am for art that is smoked like a cigarette, smells like a pair of >> shoes. >> I am for art that flaps like a flag, or helps blow noses like a >> handkerchief. >> I am for art that is put on and taken off like pants, which develops >> holes like socks, which is eaten like a piece of pie, or abandoned with >> great contempt like a piece of shit. >> I am for art covered with bandages. I am for art that limps and rolls >> and runs and jumps. >> I am for art that comes in a can or washes up on the shore. >> I am for art that coils and grunts like a wrestler. I am for art that >> sheds hair. >> I am for art you can sit on. I am for art you can pick your nose with or >> stub your toes on. >> I am for art from a pocket, from deep channels of the ear, from the edge >> of a knife, from the corners of the mouth, stuck in the eye or worn on >> the wrist. >> I am for art under the skirts, and the art of pinching cockroaches. >> I am for the art of conversation between the sidewalk and a blind man’s >> metal stick. >> I am for the art that grows in a pot, that comes down out of the skies >> at night, like lightning, that hides in the clouds and growls. I am for >> art that is flipped on and off with a switch. >> I am for art that unfolds like a map, that you can squeeze, like your >> sweetie’s arm, or kiss like a pet dog. Which expands and squeaks like an >> accordion, which you can spill your dinner on like an old tablecloth. >> I am for an art that you can hammer with, stitch with, sew with, paste >> with, file with. >> I am for an art that tells you the time of day, or where such and such a >> street is. >> I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street. >> I am for the art of the washing machine. I am for the art of a >> government check. I am for the art of last war’s raincoat. >> I am for the art that comes up in fogs from sewer holes in winter. I am >> for the art that splits when you step on a frozen puddle. I am for the >> worm’s art inside the apple. I am for the art of sweat that develops >> between crossed legs. >> I am for the art of neck hair and caked teacups, for the art between the >> tines of restaurant forks, for the odor of boiling dishwater. >> I am for the art of sailing on Sunday, and the art of red-and-white >> gasoline pumps. >> I am for the art of bright blue factory columns and blinking biscuit >> signs. >> I am for the art of cheap plaster and enamel. I am for the art of worn >> marble and smashed slate. I am for the art of rolling cobblestones and >> sliding sand. I am for the art of slag and black coal. I am for the art >> of dead birds. >> I am for the art of scratching in the asphalt, daubing at the walls. I >> am for the art of bending and kicking metal and breaking glass, and >> pulling at things to make them fall down. >> I am for the art of punching and skinned knees and sat-on bananas. I am >> for the art of kids’ smells. I am for the art of mama-babble. >> I am for the art of bar-babble, tooth-picking, beer-drinking, >> egg-salting, in-sulting. I am for the art of falling off a barstool. >> I am for the art of underwear and the art of taxicabs. I am for the art >> of ice-cream cones dropped on concrete. I am for the majestic art of dog >> turds, rising like cathedrals. >> I am for the art of bread wet by rain. I am for the rat’s dance between >> floors. I am for the art of flies walking on a slick pear in the >> electric light. I am for the art of soggy onions and firm green shoots. >> I am for the art of clicking among the nuts when the roaches come and >> go. I am for the brown sad art of rotting apples. >> I am for the art of meows and clatter of cats and for the art of their >> dumb electric eyes. >> I am for the white art of refrigerators and their muscular openings and >> closings. >> I am for the art of rust and mold. I am for the art of hearts, funeral >> hearts or sweetheart hearts, full of nougat. I am for the art of worn >> meat hooks and singing barrels of red, white, blue, and yellow meat. >> I am for the art of things lost or thrown away, coming home from school. >> I am for the art of cock-and-ball trees and flying cows and the noise of >> rectangles and squares. I am for the art of crayons and weak, gray >> pencil lead, and grainy wash and sticky oil paint, and the art of >> windshield wipers and the art of the finger on a cold window, on dusty >> steel or in the bubbles on the sides of a bathtub. >> I am for the art of teddy bears and guns and decapitated rabbits, >> exploded umbrellas, raped beds, chairs with their brown bones broken, >> burning trees, firecracker ends, chicken bones, pigeon bones, and boxes >> with men sleeping in them. >> >> I am for the art of slightly rotten funeral flowers, hung bloody rabbits >> and wrinkly yellow chickens, bass drums and tambourines, and plastic >> phonographs. >> I am for the art of abandoned boxes, tied like pharaohs. I am for an art >> of water tanks and speeding clouds and flapping shades. >> I am for US Government Inspected Art, Grade A art, Regular Price art, >> Yellow Ripe art, Extra Fancy art, Ready-to-Eat art, Best-for-Less art, >> Ready-to-Cook art, Fully Cleaned art, Spend Less art, Eat Better art, >> Ham art, pork art, chicken art, tomato art, banana art, apple art, >> turkey art, cake art, cookie art… >> >> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission >> # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, >> # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets >> # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l >> # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org >> # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
