Blog

Childhood toys lurk in our memories for years. For some people it will be a teddy bear, a doll for others. For me it was the Eeyore mascot, and for Claes Oldenburg, one of the most important pop artists, it was a Chrysler Airflow toy car.

You might want to ask: who cares about someone’s toys from years ago? And how much of a stretch is it to link them to auto-erotism? And most importantly, how does art fit into all that?

Let’s take it one question at a time. As Oldenburg himself put it, art does not have to – and indeed should not – be serious and high-minded. That’s why he would focus in his art on everyday objects – ordinary, everyday, sometimes bordering on vulgar. Small wonder that for a man who filtered the world and art through this kind of prism, an apparently trivial object such as a toy car could easily become a major source of inspiration.

Admittedly, the Chrysler Airflow is not just any car. The pioneering 1937 design caught the public off guard back in the day due to its streamlined shape that was envisaged to populate U.S. streets. But the futuristic and biomorphic model failed to attract buyers and was discontinued after just 3 years.

Oldenburg, who was born in Sweden in 1929 and moved to Chicago with his parents at the age of 7, must have been truly impressed by the Airflow. So much so that more than 30 years later he decided to embed it in an entirely new medium. For the now adult Claes, the car was not just a means of transportation or a flashy whim. He saw in it a mobile art gallery in which individual sculptural elements form a coherent whole.

Experiments behind the 1969 work took more than two years and were anything but easy. The artist tried to make a sculpture from a wooden body wrapped in vinyl or soft-padded materials. But the results were not satisfactory. And neither was the attempt to vacuum-mold plastic. Oldenburg arrived at the final version of the work in collaboration with master printer Kenneth Tyler. Made of green plexiglass, the relief finally reflected what the artist had in mind that whole time. Transparent material, soft streamlined shapes and plastic – yet another technological achievement, all morphed into a piece of art that was both perfect and inconspicuous at the same time.

Now we know why the reference to children’s toys and to the art world, but what about auto-eroticism? Well, Oldenburg used this play on words to reflect both his passion for automobiles and his childhood love for the toy. Or better yet, it was about moving from love (eroticism, from the god of love Eros) of man to love of self as a kind of perfectly built machine. Quite a metaphor for someone known for mocking pathos…

The works consumed a lot of resources and the plastic material turned yellow over time, losing a good part of its appeal and leading to production being discontinued. Rumor has it that the pre-war model of the real car cost less than the plastic bas-relief. And although groundbreaking art can be costly (not just in terms of money but also in terms of sweat and blood), it still begs the question how exactly it is supposed to address the mindless consumerism so criticized by Oldenburg.

We sure won’t hear the answer to that question from the artist himself, as he passed away this July, leaving a lasting mark on art and social awareness thanks to artworks carrying simultaneously a funny and bitter message.

transl. Jakub Majchrzak