Art Lesson: Two Cheeseburgers with Everything,
by Claes Oldenburg (Kloss Old-en-burg) 1962
The Artist: Claes Oldenburg (born January 28, 1929) is a sculptor, best known for
his public art installations typically featuring very large versions of everyday
objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions of normally hard
objects.
Oldenburg was born in Stockholm, Sweden, the son of a Swedish diplomat. As a
child he and his family moved to America in 1936, first to New York then, later, to
Chicago. He studied at Yale University from 1946 to 1950, then returned to
Chicago where he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago until 1954.
Perhaps the most memorable aspects of Oldenburg's works are the colossal
sculptures that he has made. These sculptures, though quite large, often have
interactive capabilities. One such interactive early sculpture was a soft sculpture
of a tube of lipstick which would deflate unless a participant re-pumped air into it.
In 1974, this sculpture, Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, was redesigned
in a sturdier aluminum form, the giant lipstick being placed vertically atop tank
treads.
Many of Oldenburg's giant sculptures of mundane objects elicited public ridicule
before being embraced as whimsical, insightful, and fun additions to public outdoor
art. In the 1960s he became associated with the Pop Art movement and attended
many so-called happenings, which were performance art related productions of
that time. This brash, often humorous approach to art, was at great odds with the
prevailing sensibility that, by its nature, art dealt with "profound" expressions or
ideas. But Oldenburg's spirited art found first a niche then a great popularity that
endures to this day.
Claes is one of those artists that forces you to see the little things that we blind
ourselves to everyday.
Close pin 1976
The Artwork: Two Cheese burgers with everything-Oldenburg
enjoyed making giant sculptures of foods such as ice cream,
hamburgers and French fries. These sculptures were large in scale but
small enough to fit in a large room or building. Oldenburg forces us to
look at our world in new way by making the ordinary extraordinary!
Art Lesson: Creating a large burger with everything collage
Materials: black paper or colored construction paper for background,
white glue, various colors of construction papers, brown paper for
burger/buns, cardboard, yarn, shredded paper, etc to make a tall
stacked burger with everything.
Can start with the "placemat" and then the bun. For the bun, they can
use some corrugated cardboard or brown paper and then fill up their
burger from there! Examples are below.