An art critic told The New York Times in 2017 that it’s “easy to forget how radical his work was when it first appeared”. “He broadened the definition of sculpting, somehow making it more accessible to humans, but also more cerebral.”
Oldenburg worked from 1976 to 2019 with his second wife, the Dutch-born Coosje van Bruggen. The couple called that a “true artistic partnership”. His wife passed away in 2019.
Oldenburg’s work can be seen in numerous countries, including in our country at the SMAK in Ghent. In Washington DC, where, among other things, a typewriter eraser of his is on display, he proposed to replace the Washington Monument with gigantic scissors, because “like scissors are the United States screwed together, two violent parts that are destined to come together”.
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