US Politics | Claes Oldenburg dead at 93 – Pop artist known for his giant sculptures of a baseball bat and clothespin passes away
POP artist Claes Oldenburg, known for his giant sculptures of a baseball bat and clothespins, has died at 93. The Swedish-born artist died on Monday in New York City, his daughter Maartje confirmed to AP News. 
Pop artist Claes Oldenburg has died at 93AP:Associated Press 
GettyClaes Oldenburg was famous for his giant sculptures of a baseball bat and clothespins '/ ' Oldenburg had been in poor health since falling and breaking his hip a month ago, his daughter said. He drew on the sculptor's eternal interest in form, the dadaist's breakthrough notion of bringing readymade objects into the realm of art, and the pop artist's ironic, outlaw fascination with lowbrow culture \- by reimagining ordinary items in fantastic contexts. "I want your senses to become very keen to their surroundings," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1963. "When I am served a plate of food, I see shapes and forms, and I sometimes don't know whether to eat the food or look at it," he said. Read more in The US Sun 
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STORM-AGEDDON Warning over 'life threatening' storms & flash floods with flights diverted In May 2009, a 1976 Oldenburg sculpture, Typewriter Eraser, sold for a record $2.2million at an auction of post-war and contemporary art in New York. Early in his career, he was a key developer of "soft sculpture" made out of vinyl \- another way of transforming ordinary objects — and also helped invent the quintessential 1960s art event, the Happening. Among his most famous large sculptures are Clothespin, a 45-foot steel clothespin installed near Philadelphia's City Hall in 1976, and Batcolumn, a 100-foot lattice-work steel baseball bat installed the following year in front of a federal office building in Chicago. "It's always a matter of interpretation, but I tend to look at all my works as being completely pure," Oldenburg told the Chicago Tribune in 1977, shortly before "Batcolumn" was dedicated. Most read in The US Sun MOM & DAD! Kim and Pete 'will have a baby via surrogate,' family lawyer claims COURT CHAOS Horror details after woman kidnapped & raped as suspect appears NAKED in court SEED THE WORLD Errol Musk's 'been asked to donate sperm to create new generation of Elons' SWIM SEASON I wanted to like Khloe Kardashian's Good American swim but it was see-through 'I'M OUT!' The View fans threaten to BOYCOTT show if Alyssa Farah Griffin is hired as host LAST CALL Dad's chilling FaceTime before shooting dead wife and daughters, 2 and 4 "That's the adventure of it: to take an object that's highly impure and see it as pure. That's the fun." The placement of those sculptures showed how his monument-sized items \- though still provoking much controversy \- took their place in front of public and corporate buildings as the establishment ironically championed the once-outsider art. Many of Oldenburg's later works were produced in collaboration with his second wife, Coosje van Bruggen, a Dutch-born art historian, artist and critic whom he married in 1977. The previous year, she had helped him install his 41-foot Trowel I on the grounds of the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands. Van Bruggen died in January 2009. Oldenburg's first wife, Pat, also an artist, helped him out during their marriage in the 1960s, doing the sewing on his soft sculptures. One of his early large-scale works was Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, which juxtaposed a large lipstick on tracks resembling those that propel Army tanks. The original \- with its undertone suggestion to "make love (lipstick) not war (tanks)" \- was commissioned by students and faculty and installed at Yale University in 1969. The original version deteriorated and was replaced by a steel, aluminum and fiberglass version in another spot on the Yale campus in 1974. Oldenburg's 45-foot steel Clothespin was installed in 1976 outside Philadelphia's City Hall. It evokes Constantin Brancusi's 1908 The Kiss, a semi-abstract depiction of a nearly identical man and woman embracing eyeball to eyeball. The Clothespin resembles an ordinary household object, but its two halves face each other in the same way as Brancusi's lovers. Read More On The Sun 
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A-LIST CLEAN I'm a celebrity housekeeper - what my famous clients always want me to do The Chicago Batcolumn was funded by the federal government as part of a program to include a budget for artworks whenever a big federal building was put up. It took its place not far from Chicago's famed Picasso sculpture, dedicated in 1967.
Pop artist Claes Oldenburg has died at 93AP:Associated Press GettyClaes Oldenburg was famous for his giant sculptures of a baseball bat and clothespins '/ ' Oldenburg had been in poor health since falling and breaking his hip a month ago, his daughter said. He drew on the sculptor's eternal interest in form, the dadaist's breakthrough notion of bringing readymade objects into the realm of art, and the pop artist's ironic, outlaw fascination with lowbrow culture \- by reimagining ordinary items in fantastic contexts. "I want your senses to become very keen to their surroundings," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1963. "When I am served a plate of food, I see shapes and forms, and I sometimes don't know whether to eat the food or look at it," he said. Read more in The US Sun REAL-LIFE PARASITE Horror details after man breaks into home 'to perform surgery on family' STORM-AGEDDON Warning over 'life threatening' storms & flash floods with flights diverted In May 2009, a 1976 Oldenburg sculpture, Typewriter Eraser, sold for a record $2.2million at an auction of post-war and contemporary art in New York. Early in his career, he was a key developer of "soft sculpture" made out of vinyl \- another way of transforming ordinary objects — and also helped invent the quintessential 1960s art event, the Happening. Among his most famous large sculptures are Clothespin, a 45-foot steel clothespin installed near Philadelphia's City Hall in 1976, and Batcolumn, a 100-foot lattice-work steel baseball bat installed the following year in front of a federal office building in Chicago. "It's always a matter of interpretation, but I tend to look at all my works as being completely pure," Oldenburg told the Chicago Tribune in 1977, shortly before "Batcolumn" was dedicated. Most read in The US Sun MOM & DAD! Kim and Pete 'will have a baby via surrogate,' family lawyer claims COURT CHAOS Horror details after woman kidnapped & raped as suspect appears NAKED in court SEED THE WORLD Errol Musk's 'been asked to donate sperm to create new generation of Elons' SWIM SEASON I wanted to like Khloe Kardashian's Good American swim but it was see-through 'I'M OUT!' The View fans threaten to BOYCOTT show if Alyssa Farah Griffin is hired as host LAST CALL Dad's chilling FaceTime before shooting dead wife and daughters, 2 and 4 "That's the adventure of it: to take an object that's highly impure and see it as pure. That's the fun." The placement of those sculptures showed how his monument-sized items \- though still provoking much controversy \- took their place in front of public and corporate buildings as the establishment ironically championed the once-outsider art. Many of Oldenburg's later works were produced in collaboration with his second wife, Coosje van Bruggen, a Dutch-born art historian, artist and critic whom he married in 1977. The previous year, she had helped him install his 41-foot Trowel I on the grounds of the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands. Van Bruggen died in January 2009. Oldenburg's first wife, Pat, also an artist, helped him out during their marriage in the 1960s, doing the sewing on his soft sculptures. One of his early large-scale works was Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, which juxtaposed a large lipstick on tracks resembling those that propel Army tanks. The original \- with its undertone suggestion to "make love (lipstick) not war (tanks)" \- was commissioned by students and faculty and installed at Yale University in 1969. The original version deteriorated and was replaced by a steel, aluminum and fiberglass version in another spot on the Yale campus in 1974. Oldenburg's 45-foot steel Clothespin was installed in 1976 outside Philadelphia's City Hall. It evokes Constantin Brancusi's 1908 The Kiss, a semi-abstract depiction of a nearly identical man and woman embracing eyeball to eyeball. The Clothespin resembles an ordinary household object, but its two halves face each other in the same way as Brancusi's lovers. Read More On The Sun MOM & DAD! Kim and Pete 'will have a baby via surrogate,' family lawyer claims A-LIST CLEAN I'm a celebrity housekeeper - what my famous clients always want me to do The Chicago Batcolumn was funded by the federal government as part of a program to include a budget for artworks whenever a big federal building was put up. It took its place not far from Chicago's famed Picasso sculpture, dedicated in 1967.
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