Читать книгу Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Cleveland’s Free Stamp - Edward J. Olszewski - Страница 8

PREFACE

Cleveland’s Free Stamp deserves consideration as an unusual project in Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s successful decades-long collaborations on large-scale, public sculptures. It is the first of their works to include writing. In expansion of size, it is the largest of their public sculptures relative to its prototype. Its genesis was the simplest of their many projects, arrived at with minimal discussion and without complicated explorations of drawings and models. Free Stamp became the most controversial of their projects, and was one of lengthiest in coming to fruition.

Transfer of the sculpture from its original corporate domain to a civic setting opened Free Stamp to public scrutiny, judgment, and controversy. The latter posed the dilemma of artistic freedom in a public space, a dialectic which Coosje van Bruggen elaborated in a public address after completion of the project. This study reconstructs the history of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s Free Stamp from its commission and genesis in the artists’ collaboration to its temporary rejection, then reacceptance. A new location required a metamorphosis of the rejected sculpture into a new work of art. The reasons for its relocation are probed, touching on political and cultural issues that amplify the international scope of the commission. Surveys of public sculpture in Cleveland and of Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s outdoor sculptures present a backdrop to the commission, and offer insights on the meaning and content of Free Stamp. Their collaboration is characterized, and special requirements for the fabrication of their large works are considered. Creativity as a cognitive process offers further understanding of the genesis of the sculpture.