Whimsical Sculptures by Claes Oldenburg Produce Smiles

What do you think of when you think of a city sculpture? A classic bust of bronze, a statue of a famous figure from a bygone day, an abstract modernity of questionable interpretation? Look again...from San Francisco's Embarcadero to New York City's Washington Square and lots more places in-between.

Fanciful interpretations of everyday items
Claes Oldenburg and his late wife, Coosje van Bruggen, have given us a highly amusing legacy of unlikely public monuments that will put a smile on the face of the observer. They created more than 40 sculptures as a married and creative team. An upside-down ice cream cone, a lipstick monument at Yale University, an apple eaten to the core, a badminton shuttlecock in Kansas City, an open diaper pin, giant binoculars that serve as office space in Venice, California, a Reebok sneaker, Philadelphia's 54-foot-tall clothes pin, Chicago's 101-foot baseball bat and a massive three-way plug in Oberlin, Ohio are among their examples of oversized urban art.

Cupid's Span
Nearly ten years ago, this giant arrow pierced the ground in the shadow of San Francisco's Bay Bridge, along Embarcadero by the bay. Visitors are astonished to come across the 60-foot-high bow and arrow, meant to evoke the bow of a Spanish galleon. Some say it is a tribute to the 1962 hit by Tony Bennett, his signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco".

The Safety Pin
San Francisco is also home to a 21-foot bright blue safety pin angled in the open position over a walkway in the de Young Museum's Sculpture Garden in Golden Gate Park.

Typewriter Eraser
Many readers today will not even remember these now obsolete erasers used with manual typewriters that pre-date computers. A trio of this design is located at CityCenter FIne Art Collection in Las Vegas, at the garden of the Seattle Art Museum and at Washington D.C.'s National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden.

Spoonbridge and Cherry
Since 1988, a cheery cherry weighing 1,200 pounds is balanced atop a giant stainless steel spoon of 5,800 pounds resting in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden at the Walker Art Center. Simply yummy to see, especially in the snow.

Free Stamp
A giant red rubber stamp lies on its side in Willard Park, adjacent to City Hall in Cleveland, Ohio, bearing the imprint of the word 'FREE' in reverse. 28-feet tall and 48-feet long, the piece was commissioned in 1982 but not inaugurated until 1991; there is an interesting story about how it came to rest on its side.

Sources:
http://www.oldenburgvanbruggen.com
San Francisco Travel