[sample worksheet/discussion guide]
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MONUMENTAL POP ART SCULPTURE á la Oldenburg

The artists who participated in the Pop Art movement took ordinary objects from daily life and forced us to look at them in a new way. They made the objects bigger than life and/or repeated the images so that we couldn't ignore them. In the case of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, the completed artwork was also placed in a particular environment. . . sometimes an unusual one. Oldenburg often used images of food, such as hamburgers, French fries, an apple core, a baked potato, etc., to name just a few. Warhol tended toward items mass-produced in the commercial art world.
  1. What do you see as the popular images of today that could be celebrated in a op art sculpture?

  2. What would the popular images of ten years ago have been?
    • of fifty years ago?
    • of one hundred years ago?
    • of 2,000 years ago?
    • of prehistoric times?
  3. Do the popular images change over time?

  4. Why would it be logical to assume, for example, that the pop art from the 1960s would be different from the 1990s?

  5. Would popular images/objects differ according to the culture the artist was from?

  6. What might a modern-day pop artist living in a Middle Eastern country select for a pop art image?
from Japan?
from Russia? 		from Bosnia?
from Colombia?
  1. Within our present day American culture, how might the pop art images change in subject matter depending on the exact location/circumstances of the people? For example, what images come to mind that represent our modern day homeless person?

    • a wealthy corporate executive?
    • a college student?
    • an Am. Indian living in No. Minnesota?
    • an Am. Indian from New Mexico?
    • a grain farmer from Montana?
    • a cotton farmer in Oklahoma?
    • a small town mayor?
    • a logger from Wisconsin?

  2. How would the artist's age affect his/her choice of subject for pop art?

    • what images might a kindergartner select to sculpt?
    • a baby?
    • a senior citizen ?

  3. Does one's gender affect what images/objects are important to us?

  4. Swedish-born artist, Claes Oldenburg, often chose foods/fruits/vegetables and ordinary household objects as the subject matter for his monumental sculptures. What did the artists use as subject matter in the monumental sculptures you have seen in your travels?

  5. To what extent did the environment the sculpture was placed in reflect the culture of the area?

  6. Is it important that a sculptor keep the intended setting for a piece of sculpture in mind as the work is being designed?
    Why or why not?