Claes Oldenburg, Who Made Everyday Objects Giant, Dies at 93

Claes Oldenburg, who died in 2022 aged 93, had a simple, joyful idea: take an ordinary object and make it enormous. A clothespin towering over Philadelphia, a giant spoon with a cherry in Minneapolis, soft floppy sculptures of burgers and cake.

Working often with his wife Coosje van Bruggen, the Swedish-born American filled cities around the world with monuments to the mundane — public art that made people smile rather than salute.

Playful but never trivial, Oldenburg blew up the everyday until we finally noticed it. His giant objects remain some of the most loved public sculptures anywhere.

Image: “Minneapolis Sculpture Garden” — Greg Gjerdingen, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.