Photographic Credits: Richard Adler, 10; Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, 21; author, 22, 23, 25, 26–29, 31, 39, 42, 45, 60–62, 64, 68, 190; Barcroft Media, 24, 71, 72; Case Western Reserve University Archives, 9; Archive, Cleveland City Hall, 7; the Cleveland Museum of Art, 33; Cleveland Public Library, 46; Sidney Felsen, 14, back cover; National Gallery of Art, Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 20; Joseph Karabinus, Cleveland, Ohio, 65; courtesy of the Oldenburg van Bruggen Studio, 1, 5, 8, 10–13, 15–19, 21, 34–39, 43, 49–61, 65; John Seyfried, 2–4, 41, 66, 67; Skissernas Museum, Archive of Public Art, Lund University, Sweden, 48; John Spence, 17; Bill Waterson, Chagrin Falls, Ohio, 73; Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio, 31, 42, 45; Ellen Page Wilson, New York, 19, 59.
Photographs: Richard Adler, 21; author, front cover, frontispiece, 6–8, 22–30, 32, 39, 40, 42, 44, 47, 71–73, page 190; D. James Dee, 55; Sidney B. Felson, 14, back cover; Karabinus Photography, 65–67; Emma Krantz, 48; Attilio Maranzano, 10–13, 15, 16, 18, 34–37, 43; Oldenburg van Bruggen Studio, 1, 5, 20, 21, 33, 38, 39, 43, 49, 50, 54, 56–58, 60, 61, 65; John Seyfried, Intermuseum Conservation Association, 2–4, 68–69, half title; Ellen Paige Wilson, 59; Dorothy Zeidman, 51.
INTRODUCTION
I tell you it is a great relief to have the opportunity to throw out the stamp and to have it land in such a beautiful place.
—Coosje van Bruggen1
I always feel that the end result . . . should be apt and all that, and it should set up a witty relation between large and small, but in the end it should also be something that is formally successful and has a certain beauty.
—Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen were commissioned to design a sculpture for a specific site in front of a new corporate headquarters for Sohio in downtown Cleveland (fig. 1). The contract of July 26, 1985, called for the sculptors’ design to integrate sculpture, plaza, and building on Public Square as a cohesive unit. The original rubber stamp project never materialized. After several years’ delay, a revised sculpture was dedicated, with a different location and a changed position. The project’s commission and rejection, its rescue and revision, bear recounting because a knowledge of the vicissitudes in the installation of the sculpture can lead to a better understanding of the work in its present location.2 The account in this book will be informed by a broader consideration of public sculpture in Cleveland, of other projects by Oldenburg and van Bruggen, and by a discussion of the nature and technology of the stamping process, as well as some observations about scale, metaphor in art, and cognitive approaches to creativity.
Figure 1 Architectural rendering of Free Stamp in front of Sohio headquarters in Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio [1986], drawing. Courtesy of the Oldenburg van Bruggen Studio
Aristotle considered objects that have a certain mimetic basis in reality to be appealing because they delight the eye and engage the intellect. In this he anticipated Étienne Gilson, who would refer to the easy pleasure of representational art. This would seem to be enough for an audience to appreciate Cleveland’s Free Stamp sculpture. In the sixteenth century, the painter and artists’ biographer Giorgio Vasari wrote of works of art as piacevoli inganni, or pleasing deceits, indicating that they were something other than what they pretended to be. When is a hand stamp not a hand stamp? When it is enlarged and no longer functional. But then is it still a hand stamp? Or is it just a pleasing deceit? Cleveland’s Free Stamp confirmed the observations of Aristotle and Vasari. It was a late entry in the rich tradition of large-scale sculptures by Oldenburg and van Bruggen placed in major cities throughout the world, from a rescaled matchbook in Barcelona to a pair of walk-in binoculars in Venice, California.
The metamorphosis of the Cleveland sculpture can be traced from the artists’ original hand stamp design for Sohio by charting the steps of its installation. The unusual chain of events following the commission of the sculpture, its subsequent rejection, and the timing of these events shaped the outcome. As Oldenburg and van Bruggen assembled the upright stamp in its neutral, painted undercoat, then tipped and tilted it into its nestled location in Willard Park, they transformed a work of totemic stature into a useful and familiar shape from the bureaucratic world (fig. 2).
The outdoor sculptures of Oldenburg and van Bruggen are fanciful works of impressive scale with a foundation in the imagery of daily life. Their clean lines and pure forms demand meticulous craftsmanship. If Free Stamp is anything, it is an expression of formal compactness. For some, the pleasure of its settled beauty in Willard Park will be enough, as the sensuous rotundity of its handle complements the sharp edges framing the rectangular message, FREE (fig. 3). It changes when circled, as the flat statement of its lettering is countered by the rounded handle, where a play of concave against convex also takes place. Its swollen forms, cheerful colors, and tilting position offer a foil to the repetitive rhythms of the classical orders in the adjacent city hall.
Figure 2 Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Free Stamp, 1991, steel and aluminum painted with polyurethane enamel, lateral view, 28 ft. 10 in. × 26 ft. × 49 ft. (8.8 × 7.9 × 14.9 m). Willard Park, Cleveland, Ohio. Gift of BP America, Inc., to the City of Cleveland. Photo by John T. Seyfried. © ICA-Art Conservation 2015