Claes Oldenburg, a pop artist known for his enormous sculptures of everyday objects like a clothespin and a baseball bat, has passed away at the age of 93.
Maartje Oldenburg, his daughter, reports that Oldenburg passed away in Manhattan on Monday morning. Since he broke his hip in a fall a month earlier, he had been in horrible condition.
By placing common goods in magical settings, Swedish-born Oldenburg drew inspiration from the dadaists’ groundbreaking idea of bringing readymade objects into the domain of art as well as pop artists’ sardonic, rebellious love with lowbrow culture.
How did Claes Oldenburg die?
According to his daughter Maartje Oldenburg, he broke his hip in a fall and had since been in horrible condition.
He helped create the iconic 1960s art event, the “Happening,” as well as “soft sculpture” made of vinyl, another means of altering everyday objects, early in his career.
His most well-known huge sculptures include “Clothespin,” a 45-foot steel clothes pin put close to City Hall in Philadelphia in 1976, and “Batcolumn,” a 100-foot lattice-work steel baseball bat installed in front of a federal office building in Chicago the following year.