Soft Switches

Artist Claes Oldenburg (American, born Sweden, 1929 - 2022)

Date1964

MediumVinyl and Dacron

DimensionsOverall: 47 × 47 × 3 5/8 inches (119.38 × 119.38 × 9.21 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Chapin family in memory of Susan Chapin Buckwalter

Object number65-29

On View

Not on view

Collections

Contemporary Art

Terms

Gallery Label

Claes Oldenburg and fellow Pop artists of the 1960s created work inspired by popular imagery and common objects. Pop Art surfaced in New York City in the late 1950s, when artists such as Oldenburg, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann began to react against the serious and introspective nature of Abstract Expressionism.

Oldenburg is renowned for transforming small, ordinary objects into monumental sculptures and for turning hard forms into soft sculptures made of various kinds of fabric. In 1964, he began a series of works inspired by home furnishings. Soft Switches, an example from this series, surprises us with its whimsical, hybrid appearance that evokes human physiognomy and personality.

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