Architect's Handkerchief
Oldenburg, Claes; Bruggen, Coosje van
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Date
1999Description
General view; [From a Metropolitan exhibit of the piece]...the billowing white sail of Architect's Handkerchief (1999), of fiber-reinforced plastic painted with polyester gelcoat, 12 feet high and wide, 7 feet deep, seems defiantly unrecognizable in the context of this installation, given the relative absence of the pocket square from the haberdashery of contemporary culture. While it springs exuberantly from an otherwise featureless footing like a flower from a pot, the sculpture finds its source in a photograph by Peter Blake, a tightly framed image of the signature handkerchief of Mies van der Rohe, published for ease of reference in the Metropolitan's exhibition brochure. Greatly enlarged, the convolutions of white seemed to waft up and westward toward the clouds of a buttermilk sky. However Miesian the source, the rippling forms more immediately recall the familiar billowing folds designed by Oldenburg and van Bruggen's close friend and sometime collaborator, Frank O. Gehry. Source: Leffingwell, Edward; All sorts of valuable objects: drainpipes, knives, electric sockets, Chryslers, bananas, safety pins and other familiar items populated three concurrent New York shows of drawings and sculptures by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Art in America [electronic version], October 2002, (0004-3214) (accessed 7/8/2008)
Type of Work
sculpture (visual work)Subject
contemporary (1960 to present), Twentieth century, Pop
Rights
Rights Statement
Licensed for educational and research use by the MIT community only