Beschreibung:

Claes Oldenburg SCREWARCH MODEL 1977 Cast bronze with a separate steel base plate. 17 1/2 x 36 x 15 in. (44.5 x 91.4 x 38.1 cm.) Inscribed “Oldenburg 1977” and numbered of four on the underside of the screw head and inscribed again “SCREWARCH MODEL 1978” and numbered one of four on the base. This work is from an edition of four plus one artist’s proof.
Provenance Collection of the artist; Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago (1977); Private collection, Chicago (1977-2006); Private collection, New York Exhibited Chicago, Richard Gray Gallery, An Exhibition of Recent Small Scale Fabricated Works and Drawings, September - November 1977; Rotterdam, Museum Beuymans-van-Beuningen, Claes Oldenburg The Screwarch Project 1978-1982, 1983; Sunderland, Northern Center for Contemporary Art; Leeds, The Henry Moore Centre for the Study of Sculpture Leeds City Art Gallery; London, The Serpentine Gallery; Swansea, The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Valencia, IVAM, Centre Julio González, A Bottle of Notes and Some Voyages: Claes Oldenburg Coosje van Bruggen February 2, 1988 - November 15, 1989, p. 139 (another example exhibited and illustrated in color) Literature C. Oldenburg, C. Van Bruggen and R. H. Fuchs, Claes Oldenburg Large Scale Projects 1977-1978: A Chronicle Based on Notes, Statements, Contracts, Correspondence and Other Documents Related to the Works, New York, 1980, p. 46 (another example illustrated); C. Blok, ed., Claes Oldenburg The Screwarch Project 1978-1982, Rotterdam, 1983, p. 19 (another example illustrated); Marisa del Re Gallery, Sculptures for Public Spaces, New York, 1986 (another example illustrated); "Sculptures for Public Spaces," Art News, Summer, 1986, p. 149 (another example illustrated); G. Celant, A Bottle of Notes and Some Voyages: Claes Oldenburg Coosje van Bruggen Leeds, 1988, p. 139 (another example illustrated in color); G. Celant, A Bottle of Notes and Some Voyages: Claes Oldenburg Coosje van Bruggen Valencia, 1989, p. 139 (another example illustrated in color) Catalogue Essay Oldenburg’s sculptural works boldly consider the heightened consumerist appetite of post war America by appropriating mass-produced objects, and manipulating their scale and material, compelling the viewer to give the object a radical new reading. In the artist’s own words, “I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary. …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 I am for an art…, May 1961). The present lot, Screw Arch Model, is a maquette for the artist’s monumental permanent installation, commissioned in 1983 for the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Screw Arch Model is a prime example of the artist’s startling and profound sculptural oeuvre. The screw, a mass-produced object used to hold all manner of construction material together, has been manipulated in scale and shape by the artist. Oldenburg alters the straight, unrelenting shape of the screw into a soft curving arch. The supple and spiraling thread of the screw lends a surrealist tone and striking visually humorous element to the work. Read More