Claes Oldenburg Alphabet/Good Humor Analysis

I choose to do a piece of art inspired by Alphabet/Good Humor, a sculpture by Claes Oldenburg. Oldenburg’s Alphabet/Good Humor (Fig. 1) is a large Popsicle shaped sculpture, formed by fleshy pink bubble letters. At almost twelve feet tall, the piece, made of painted fiberglass and bronze, has a playful, almost charismatic feel. The odd muted peach, almost vomit-esque color of the letters reminds me of a brain, or some other body part that could be found deep inside someone, and clashes with the bright colors one traditionally associates with these frozen desserts. Located at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the piece was recently reinstalled in the west end of the Early Twentieth Century Art Gallery bridge, where it demands to be noticed

The more I look at the piece, the more I become fascinated with it. What was Oldenburg trying to say through this piece? Did he intend for the strange pink color to evoke disgust in viewers? I craved to know more about the brain behind this work of art, and I itched to start my own piece inspired by the sculpture I had seen. Oldenburg is an American artist of Swedish descent. He attended Yale University, where he studied Literature and Art and graduated in 1950. After working unfruitfully as a journalist, Oldenburg began attending the Chicago Art Institute in 1952. Oldenburg moved to New York City in 1956 (McKenna, 1995). At this time, New York was home to a budding creative community of artists and writers, many of whom would eventually become household names. It is here that he began to truly create his own definition of art. Oldenburg is associated with the Pop Art movement that developed during the 1960s. At this time, his aggressive and comical style was unlike the prevailing idea that art was supposed to deal with profound and important subjects, not objects of everyday life. But in 1963, Oldenburg began to feel like he had run out of inspiration, and so he moved to Los Angeles, because “it was the most opposite thing to New York (he) could think of” (McKenna,

3). This piece is famous for the controversy it originally caused when placed on the campus, Oldenburg’s alma mater, in 1969, a year plagued by student protests against the Vietnam War. This sculpture, much like Alphabet/Good Humor, seems silly at first, and plays with juxtaposition of themes. During the same year that Lipstick was made, a collection of Oldenburg’s work was displayed in the Stedlijk Museum in Amsterdam. The curator at the time was Coosje Van Bruggen, Van Bruggen and Oldenburg eventually got married in 1977. Oldenburg believes that his wife has been good for his art, and Van Bruggen has said that the pair “work together beautifully”, adding that the partnership is “very flexible” in terms of the roles they take on in the process of coming up with art ideas. Since 1981, Oldenburg has signed both his and Van Bruggen’s name on all his pieces, as he considers the two to be equal collaborators in the artistic process My piece was inspired by the feelings that I experienced during the time that I viewed Oldenburg’s work, as well as the revelations I experienced when researching more about Oldenburg and Alphabet/Good Humor. This year has been particularly trying for me. I have been struggling to cope with various changes in my personal life, and this has led to an extended period of anxiety and