Claes Oldenburg, who was born in Sweden, moved at an early age to the US, where he studied art and literature. He is primarily known for his monumental versions of everyday objects in the public space: inflatable sculptures of a spade, a screw and a baseball bat, amongst other things. Another core element of Oldenburg’s practice are the ‘soft sculptures’, enlarged versions of typically hard items in soft, flexible materials. Transforming these kinds of objects from our everyday reality, through an alteration of scale or material, became this pop artist’s trademark.
