Claes Oldenburg (born 1929)

Pop Art art movement that starts in the 1950’s

Pop artists were angry at this kind of art

It doesn’t look like anything! What does it mean?

Pop artists wanted to make art based on things from “popular culture” so that it would be recognizable and easy to understand

Andy Warhol Roy Lichtenstein

Jasper Johns

Oldenburg’s first jobs (before becoming an

artist) were working in restaurants – fast food

was also becoming popular in the 1950s

Oldenburg wanted to use art to get us to look at ordinary things in new ways

Gravity (and the effects of gravity) is an important element of his soft sculptures

We usually focus on these familiar objects for their uses, but the new context gives them a “contemporary magic”

Scale = how big something is

Oldenburg likes to take ordinary small things and make the MONUMENTAL (or super big!)

Seeing familiar things in unexpected ways

Our art project today: Oldenburg inspired

sandwiches