Page 64 - Studio International - December1996

Ping Pong Table 1964
Painted wood, plaster
39 x 54 x 84 in,
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Far right
Model (Ghost) Medicine
Cabinet 1966
Liquitex, canvas, wood,
kapok
35 1/2 x 24 x 6 1/2 in.
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Consequently, his Giant Good Humor is not felt to be a tion of another reality, a reality according to the human
representation of some enormous ice-cream bar. It is experience, occupying the same space as the other, more
simply a large picture of a perfectly ordinary-sized ice- hostile reality of nature. A reality with tears, or as if a
cream bar—which is something entirely different. q piece of pie had attained a state of moral responsibility.'
This is true; since a work of art is always preceded by a
Sleep is a physiological condition; one which the sleeper series of choices, it cannot escape moral involvement. On
himself does not experience. the other hand, an artist works not only on the conscious
But sleep is also a social phenomenon. A person going to level where choices are made; he also works as a medium
bed performs a certain ritual: he undresses, he washes, he or sleepwalker. He can never be conscious of everything
turns out the light, and he closes his eyes. He plays the he does (Oldenburg doesn't want to be).
role of a sleeper before he falls asleep. (This behaviour may The artist operates in the area between consciousness
be considered rational but it is not natural, as anyone and unconsciousness; so does the person preparing to fall
knows who has seen a child being told to go to bed ... ) asleep—this belongs to their roles. Consciousness opens to-
Responsibility is removed along with the clothes.* The wards unconsciousness, the non-natural towards nature,
ritual is concerned with redemption and rebirth, since the responsibility towards non-responsibility.
sleeper each night turns into nature—and nature can Oldenburg's way of collaborating with gravity is highly
never be held responsible. reminiscent of this. But he cannot afford to abandon the
Many of Claes Oldenburg's works are concerned with non-natural position—if he did so he could not experience
sleep. The most obvious, of course, is his Bedroom Ensem- Nature as `natural'; he stays awake—because for the
ble. But he has also depicted the ante-chamber in which sleeper sleep does not exist. Oldenburg says that he does
much of the ritual is enacted— the Bathroom; and the Wall not want to make the 'soft' sculptures too large, because
Switches which produce darkness; the shirt hung on the then gravity would win out completely.
back of a chair ... the list of examples is long. As usual with Oldenburg, it is a question of being neither
Still more important, however, are the conclusions to be one thing nor the other— or more precisely, a 'not yet...'.
drawn from the morphology of sleep. The body of a per- Ulf Linde
son awake is shaped by resistance to the force of gravity— Object-making
whereas the sleeper's body on the contrary accepts gravity.
It offers no resistance. The softness in Oldenburg's soft Why should it be meaningful to make objects if one is an
sculptures makes these anthropomorphic; but they American artist ?
resemble people asleep, not awake. Though the poetic In the U.S.A., as we know, objects (goods) have an
effect is yet more complicated— the associations of pillows ecstatic quality—so that they can be sold, so that new
or mattresses, the most essential of all sleep-articles, is objects can be made, so that more people have the means
certainly meaningful. to buy more objects. If the U.S.A. is half a warfare state
During sleep man is reduced to nature. This reduction with a strategic industry 'for the good of the nation' (of
also occurs in the soft sculptures. Oldenburg thus states politicians, the military and industrialists), the remainder
in a new way the ancient problem of the relation of art to is a market state Tor the good of the individual' (of the
nature. He is well aware that a work of art is not nature industry). To speed up this crazy circle, the Americans
and has himself said : 'Recreating experience is the crea- are reminded from the time they wake up in the morning
*`The one who sleeps doesn't sin' is a Swedish proverb. until the time when they lose consciousness, that goods