Claes Oldenburg Quotes

Quotes about:

• I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Art, Growing Up, Knowing

  Claes Oldenburg, International Council of the Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), Tate Gallery (1970). “Claes Oldenburg: an exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, under the auspices of the International Council of the Museum, the Tate Gallery, London 24 June - 16th August 1970”

  34 Copy quote

• I'm in favor of an art that does something other than just sit on its ass in a museum.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Art, Fun, Museums

  55 Copy quote

• Everything I do is completely original-I made it up when I was a kid.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Art, Kids, Made

  Claes Oldenburg, International Council of the Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), Tate Gallery (1970). “Claes Oldenburg: an exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, under the auspices of the International Council of the Museum, the Tate Gallery, London 24 June - 16th August 1970”

  65 Copy quote

• Because my work is naturally non-meaningful, the meaning found in it will remain doubtful and inconsistent - which is the way it should be. All that I care about is that, like any startling piece of nature, it should be capable of stimulating meaning.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Meaningful, Way, Pieces

  Claes Oldenburg, International Council of the Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), Tate Gallery (1970). “Claes Oldenburg: an exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, under the auspices of the International Council of the Museum, the Tate Gallery, London 24 June - 16th August 1970”

  45 Copy quote

• My rule was not to paint things as they were. I wasn't copying; I was remaking them as my own.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Copying, Paint, My Own

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  33 Copy quote

• I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Sweet, Art, Stupid

  Claes Oldenburg, International Council of the Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), Tate Gallery (1970). “Claes Oldenburg: an exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, under the auspices of the International Council of the Museum, the Tate Gallery, London 24 June - 16th August 1970”

  37 Copy quote

• The main reason for the colossal objects is the obvious one, to expand and intensify the presence of the vessel - the object.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Reason, Obvious, Objects

  Claes Oldenburg (1969). “Claes Oldenburg, Constructions, Models, and Drawings: Richard Feigen Gallery, Chicago, April 30-May 31, 1969”

  28 Copy quote

• Art is a technique of communication. The image is the most complete technique of all communication.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Art, Communication, Technique

  25 Copy quote

• For a thorough use of ice cream cones, buy two; eat one and drop the other.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Ice Cream, Two, Use

  Richard H. Axsom, David Platzker, Claes Oldenburg (1997). “Printed Stuff: Prints, Posters, and Ephemera by Claes Oldenburg : a Catalogue Raisonné 1958-1996”, p.128, Hudson Hills

  25 Copy quote

• Food is like clay; you can sculpt with it. Also it has an odor, and you can eat it. I don't eat a lot of cake, but I do make cakes! And unlike the Campbell's Soup Cans, my food is a humanized form and scale.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Cake, Clay, Odor

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  26 Copy quote

• I am preoccupied with the possibility of creating art which functions in a public situation without compromising its private character of being antiheroic, antimonumental, antiabstract, and antigeneral. The paradox is intensified by the use on a grand scale of small-scale subjects known from intimate situations--an approach which tends in turn to reduce the scale of the real landscape to imaginary dimensions.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Art, Real, Character

  24 Copy quote

• I am for the art of underwear and the art of taxicabs. I am for the art of ice cream cones dropped on concrete.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Art, Ice Cream, Underwear

  Claes Oldenburg, International Council of the Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), Tate Gallery (1970). “Claes Oldenburg: an exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, under the auspices of the International Council of the Museum, the Tate Gallery, London 24 June - 16th August 1970”

  20 Copy quote

• If I didn't think what I was doing had something to do with enlarging the boundaries of art, I wouldn't go on doing it.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Art, Thinking, Goes On

  21 Copy quote

• All the fun is locking horns with impossibilities.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Inspirational, Fun, Horns

  5 Copy quote

• I like food because you can change it. I mean, there is no such thing as a perfect lamb chop; you can make all types of lamb chops. And that's true of everything. And people eat it and it changes and disappears.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Mean, People, Perfect

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  19 Copy quote

• I am for an art that tells you the time of day, or where such and such a street is. I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Art, Helping, Old Lady

  Store Days: Documents from the Store (1961)

  24 Copy quote

• I don't do abstract art because I don't find it as interesting as I do subjects and depictions.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Art, Interesting, Abstract

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  14 Copy quote

• Painting, especially much better than words, allows oneself to express the various stages of thought, including the deeper levels, the underground stages of the mental process.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Levels, Painting, Process

  8 Copy quote

• Andy [Warhol] was on the scene, but he wasn't an artist at first; he was more an illustrator. He was always surrounded by about ten people who worshipped him. He'd go to a party and they would all come along. But he was drawing shoes and that sort of thing.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Party, Artist, Shoes

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Mine was not pop art. I maybe started with a subject, but I changed the subject.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Art, Pops, Changed

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  17 Copy quote

• There's always been a potential erotic possibility with objects.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Erotic, Possibility, Objects

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• I am for an art of things lost or thrown away. . . I am for an art that one smokes like a cigarette. . . I am for an art that flutters like a flag.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Art, Flags, Cigarette

  10 Copy quote

• Of course, the '60s was a study in decadence. Everything just got worse and worse, and at the end of the '60s, everything was so horrible that people were killing each other.

  Claes Oldenburg

  People, Killing Each Other, Study

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  7 Copy quote

• When you're working with an object, you can put in almost anything you want, you can make it abstract.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Want, Abstract, Objects

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  11 Copy quote

• I think the Freudian impulse is in everything, so I just accept it. I don't always believe what Freud is saying but it sounds like fun.

  Claes Oldenburg

  Fun, Believe, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

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