Big, Bigger, Oldenburg ...
Claes Oldenburg's art pushes the boundaries of space; today, his massive works are internationally celebrated icons of post-war American art. Above all, his unsettling and equally fascinating “Giant Objects” have made the Swedish-born artist one of the most important representatives of American Pop Art. The first works of this kind, his gigantic slice of cake (“Floor Cake,” 1962) and his giant ice cream cone (“Floor Cone,” 1962), both of which were acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, are among Oldenburg's most famous works, alongside his oversized hamburger (“Floor Burger,” 1962, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto). The humorously alienated depictions of American street food, monumentalized and artistically staged, continue to captivate viewers today. Starting with his legendary exhibition “The Store” (1961) at Manhattan's Green Gallery, Oldenburg's unparalleled artistic creations would make him world famous in the following years. As early as 1969, the Museum of Modern Art hosted his first solo exhibition, which was also considered the first major pop art exhibition at the New York museum. However, it was not until many years later that Oldenburg's contemporaries, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, received similar recognition from the institution. In the 1970s, Oldenburg took his art to a new level by creating monumental sculptures that fill entire spaces and can now be admired in public spaces from New York to Tokyo. Since the late 1970s, he has worked on these sculptures with his second wife, artist Coosje van Bruggen.



Oldenburg in New York: "Leaning Fork with Meatball & Spaghetti III" a humorous take on the multicultural metropolis
Born in Stockholm and raised in Chicago, Oldenburg moved to New York at 27 in 1956. By the early 1960s, he had established himself alongside Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Tom Wesselmann as one of the leading figures of the rebellious Pop Art movement, which saw itself as a counterculture to the gestural painting of Abstract Expressionism, as exemplified by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Like Andy Warhol's work, Oldenburg questions the traditional, outdated notion of art and artists in a playful and self-deprecating manner. Despite his humor and wit, he was never just funny or entertaining but stood for an unusually loud, courageous, and self-assured rejection of art-historical tradition. Oldenburg's “Giant Objects” make us smirk while breaking with established artistic norms and viewing habits. In the tradition of Duchamp's famous ready-made pieces, they depict seemingly insignificant everyday objects, thereby unleashing something radically new.



In our nearly 3.5-meter-tall work “Leaning Fork with Meatball & Spaghetti III,” Oldenburg draws on motifs from his artistic beginnings, the works created for his famous exhibition “The Store” (1961) at Green Gallery in Manhattan, which he temporarily transformed into a grocery store with artworks based on edible motifs.
What's more, by casually leaning our giant fork with a few pieces of spaghetti and a tomato sauce meatball against the wall, he created a surreal yet realistic symbol of the cultural melting pot of New York City. Spaghetti with meatballs is not a classic Italian pasta dish but was invented by Italian immigrants in America in the early 20th century. Originating in New York's “Little Italy” neighborhood, the dish became a staple of everyday cuisine on the streets of New York in the second half of the 20th century, from where it conquered the whole country.



One of a kind: Oldenburg's "Giant Objects"
As with other “Giant Objects” by Claes Oldenburg, there are only three versions of this stunning work, each unique. Just one year after its creation, “Leaning Fork with Meatball & Spaghetti I” from the collection of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, was featured in the major Oldenburg exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The present version, “Leaning Fork with Meatball & Spaghetti III,” was sold from a private New York collection to a private German collection of international post-war art in 2015. Oldenburg's captivating “Giant Objects” are scarce on the global auction market. A copy of the almost six-meter-high work “Typewriter Eraser, Scale X” from 1998/99 was auctioned in New York for the current record price of US$7 million.
In stark contrast to his New York artist colleague Andy Warhol, Oldenburg never sought the limelight but always let his art do the talking. And so, on his death in 2022, the New York Times paid tribute to Oldenburg's life and work with the words: “Pop Artist made the Everyday Monumental.” [JS]