Soft Saxophone, Scale B

Claes Oldenburg and his fellow Pop artists of the 1960s created work inspired by such popular imagery as common household objects, commercial advertisements and comic strips. By radically altering their scale and surface texture, Oldenburg created soft, sculptural versions of familiar objects-toilets, toothpaste tubes and light switches.

Soft Saxophone, Scale B was conceived as part of a group of works inspired by the idea of forced air, including objects as dissimilar as clarinets and perfume bottles with atomizers. With an almost Surrealist attitude toward the unexpected, the hybrid form of Oldenburg's Saxophone prompts us to imagine a variety of associations. Two of Oldenburg's acknowledged references are to a languorous female form and a twisting current of air in the form of a tornado.