Existing comment:
Claes Oldenburgborn
Stockholm, Sweden 1929
Fireplug Souvenir -- "Chicago August 1968"1968
plaster and acrylic paint
Collection of Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen, courtesy of Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
"In Chicago, I, like so many others, ran head-on into the model American police state," wrote Claes Oldenburg of his experience at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, an event marked by police violence against antiwar protesters. "I was tossed to the ground by six swearing troopers who kicked me and choked me and called me a communist." Oldenburg went on to cancel an exhibition slated for a Chicago gallery, stating, "[A] gentle one-man show about pleasure seems a bit obscene in the present context." The gallery instead mounted a group exhibition voicing opposition to Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, who had authorized the police's conduct. Oldenburg contributed fifty small sculptures modeled after the city's style of fireplug, suggesting that one be thrown through the gallery window "to launch the protest exhibition. |