Biography
Waddington Galleries, London will present a major exhibition of work by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. It will feature important works from the past 40 years, including one of Claes Oldenburg’s earliest sculptures ‘Fan-Hard Model’, 1965–66 and key Oldenburg/van Bruggen pieces from the 1980s such as ‘From the Entropic Library–Model’, 1980–89 and ‘Monument to the Last Horse’, 1989–90, the large-scale version of which was commissioned by Donald Judd and donated by the artists to the Chinati Foundation. A suite of musical works span 1992 to 2005 and comprise ‘soft sculptures’ such as ‘Soft Saxophone, Scale A, Muslin’, 1992; ‘Silent Metronome, 16 inch, Version Three’, 2005; ‘hard’ sculptures such as ‘Tied Trumpet’, 2004, and rarely seen drawings. Key ‘food’ pieces on display include ‘Leaning Fork with Meatball and Spaghetti III’, 1994 and ‘Blueberry Pie à la Mode, Flying, Scale A’, 1996. ‘Soft Shuttlecock, Study’, 1994, will also be exhibited, of which the large version was specifically created for the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum.
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen have worked together since 1976, after meeting at Sonsbeek 71, where Oldenburg exhibited the 41-foot tall ‘Trowel I’ and van Bruggen co-edited the exhibition catalogue. They were married in 1977 and have continued their artistic collaboration for over 25 years. Their iconic projects often blur the line between architecture, art and theatre. They have executed more than 40 permanently sited, architecturally scaled sculptures throughout America, Europe, and Japan. These include ‘Spoonbridge and Cherry’ (1988), Minneapolis; ‘Mistos (Match Cover)’, (1992), Barcelona; ‘Shuttlecocks’ (1994), ‘Kansas City; Saw, Sawing’ (1996), Tokyo; Ago, ‘Filo e Nodo (Needle, Thread and Knot)’ (2000), Milan; and the 40-foot-high ‘Dropped Cone’ (2001) on top of Neumarkt Galerie in Cologne, Germany. Their collaboration has also encompassed smaller park and garden sculptures in addition to indoor installations.
The sculpture ‘French Horns, Unwound and Entwined’, 2005, will be on display as part of Frieze Sculpture Garden
