CLAES OLDENBURG

The gigantic cherry and "spoon bridge" on this month's cover have become symbols for Minneapolis. The sculpture is one of the most fantasy-filled works of Swedish-born pop artist Claes Oldenburg, and even incorporates a fountain.

69-year old Claes Oldenburg is in the news again this summer with the first retrospective in England in over 25 years at the prestigious Hayward Gallery in London.

Born in Stockholm in 1929, Oldenburg spent much of his youth in Chicago where his father was Consul General for Sweden. After a stint as a journalist, the Yale graduate started devoting more and more time to art, at first gaining fame as a performance artist who staged countless "happenings".

When "pop art" exploded Oldenburg's sculptures of make-believe food became a given in art history books. His gigantic Ice cream Sundaes, Hamburgers, Chocolate Eclairs, Pecan Pies, Hot Dogs and the chef d'oeuvre "Two Cheeseburgers with everything" (1961) explored the sheer vulgarity and tastelessness of the object.

The first objects looked mostly like ice cream parlour props but later ones like a gigantic slice of cake were stuffed and stitched together by Oldenburg's wife. and assistants long before Warhol started his assembly line in the factory.

The first Oldenburg pieces were primarily food items, but these were soon followed by both hard and soft vinyl sculptures of toothbrushes, saws, icepacks, martini glasses as well as used teabags and spent matches. Some of these popular icons like lipsticks were also suggested as enormous pre-Christo sculptures. A few like the hundred-foot tall baseball bat (Batcolumn 1977) in steel in Chicago were erected and are now popular landmarks.

Claes Oldenburg has worked in many styles and mediums. Among his most famous works are "Bedroom Ensemble" which was a full-scale installation of a motel room, and "London knees" (multiples originally cast from a sawed-off pair of legs from a mannequin) and "Geometric Mouse" that is a sort of abstraction of Mickey Mouse. When Oldenburg exhibited at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, he cast multiples of crisp bread (Knäckebröd, 1966) in iron.

Claes Oldenburg has lived and worked in many parts of the world, but he will always be connected to the United States through the wry yet "affectionate monuments to the transient culture of his adopted country".

He is now re-married to art historian Coosje van Bruggen. His brother Richard Oldenburg who was Swedish American of the Year in 1995 was for many years head of the MOMA Museum of Modern Art in New York.