BOOK: Claes Oldenburg/Coosje van Bruggen-Recent Work, Pace Publishing

The book “Claes Oldenburg/Coosje van Bruggen: Recent Work” spotlights a series of sculptures and works on paper created by the artist duo between 1997 and 2002. With Swiss binding and a pocket on the inside front cover that holds a poster of “Balzac Pétanique” (2002), this book was released to accompany the exhibition held at Pace in New York in 2002.  A leading voice of the Pop art movement, Oldenburg came to prominence in the New York art scene of the late 1950s and early 1960s, where he established himself with a series of installations and performances influenced by his surroundings on the Lower East Side. Moving from early environments, Oldenburg then developed a series of soft sculptures, created with the participation with his first wife Patty Mucha. These took as subjects ordinary, everyday objects, often enlarged, as did a series of fantastic proposals for civic monuments. In 1977, Oldenburg married curator and art historian Coosje van Bruggen, with whom he would collaborate for over thirty years. In addition to curatorial and lecturing positions, van Bruggen was the author of many articles and books including monographs on Bruce Nauman, Hanne Darboven, John Baldessari, and Claes Oldenburg. Together, Oldenburg and van Bruggen produced sculpture, drawings, performances, and colossal monuments that transform the familiar into the unexpected.-Dimitris Lempesis