IMAGINING “CITY NATURE”
IMAGINING “CITY NATURE” SKETCHES OF THE UNREALIZED
Long before Oldenburg made an attempt to reformulate the monument tradition, he conceived one of the central premises of his art. He wanted work that was at once crudely provocative, even as it maintains its identity as art. He described his impetus for these works as partly deriving from the desire to build “monuments” to everyday things, which would be located in places that were not typically thought of as cultural. His point was to make the banal into something physically imposing, as well as, possibly beautiful. Although known throughout his career as a sculptor and a draftsman, Oldenburg has perhaps most effectively realized his aspiration as provocateur in the arena of the monument, confounding expectations associated with the tradition and offering a new interpretation of one of the oldest and most recognizable artistic conventions. Oldenburg’s first statement about public sculpture, in 1960, was placed in a bit of fictional dialogue in which a certain dignitary very cynically makes clear that “civic improvements” requires “bulls and Greeks and lots of nekkid broads.” The artist himself would certainly agree that the monument is an aspect of the urban landscape, in which human activity predominates, but rather than the usual assortments of subject — m en in uniform and on horseback— he wanted a more authentic version of what he wanted a more authentic version of what he called “city 12 Good Humor Bar Proposed Colossal Monument for Park Avenue, New York 1965, crayon and watercolor on paper 23½ x 17½ inches Collection: Carrol Janis, New York
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