Claes Oldenburg's Crusoe Umbrella

Years ago I made a drawing of Robinson Crusoe with his umbrella. And I've always imagined myself at those moments when I'm alone in the studio that I'm like Crusoe on his island where. I'm.

From drawings and sketches transformations and other related ideas and songs. Then it goes through changes to suddenly becoming itself. Because Oldenburg has created a £40000. So I'm glad for the moment. In a sense the civic center of the mind is an island in the heart of the city. It is also a place that the arts can happen both outside NLM Plaza and inside the Civic Center Theater a major art happening occurred when Clauss Oldenburg was asked to design a sculpture for the moins island in the city. At a cost of one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars 50000 from the National Endowment for the arts and 75000 raised locally. The governing board of the Greater Des Moines Civic Center commissioned the class Oldenburg

advocate the 53 foot long 33 foot high Couso umbrella and placed it on the concrete because of knowledge of. Large scale monumental sculpture. It's not new to Oldham but using his favorite theme of common inanimate objects he has already created a 45 foot close even for Philadelphia in 1975 and in 1977 a one hundred foot column for Chicago. But perhaps he is best known for his salt sculptures in the history of art. Innovation has been one of the major factors in determining an artist's importance. Innovation. Plus the influence that that artist has on other artists who come after him. And along those lines I think this whole innovation of making a piece of sculpture sauf and having it look different from one moment to the other.

Is a major innovation. And then the whole use of subject matter. In old bird too I think is really unique very mundane subjects and yet they become abstract. And yet at the same time it retains all those connotations of an actual object. She began reading things into it. If the engagement was Robinson Crusoe could be said to go back to 1977 when I was living in Holland and we had an umbrella in the garden which the children played with. And I also visited my wife's father who has since died. A wonderful man who lived in the north of Holland on a farm and had his own garden and a big beard and really was very much of a Crusoe's like figure. And we talked a lot about plants and different shapes of plants. The first drawings were VERY of an umbrella.

Were very plantlife and immediately there was a reference to Crusoe Mambos poetic ideas came together so that the idea of a whole book of a Crusoe related organic plant like umbrella really goes back to before I started this commission. When I came to the mine I was thinking of the umbrella at all. However the idea of the umbrella was awakened by the science. You know the traveller's style. I just saw suddenly an umbrella lighting up in the night. And. Then I began to notice that many forms in Des Moines had a dome shape. Because in the logo of the city. There is a reference to the arches of the bridges also to the domes of the Capitol. I also had felt from my first. Glimpse of the side that obviously that was

something not only organic but also circular to play against the severe geometry of the building so I was thinking about Pumpkin's because it happened to be I think around Halloween. The nice thing about pumpkins is that they're a kind of organic version of a geometrical form which is about what I was looking for. I went back to New York and I tried all kinds of things. These projects began on a very very primitive scale. I like to keep it as primitive as possible and I like to work entirely within what lies around my studio. Said over the years has come to quite a lot of possible debris. I like to start at the lowest possible level of achievement you know with paper clips and Staples and whatever is lying around old shirt cardboard. And I see it from the very beginning that the pieces is really mine and comes out of my studio. And even when it gets to

be magnified it still goes back to those beginnings. It's rather poetic it's that at that stage I'm wondering around in my studio and all kinds of things. It's a very fertile time and the problem really is to make it to make it focus on something. Lots of frustration. It's especially frustrating at the beginning of a project when you have no idea what you're going to do and you have the feeling that everybody is waiting for you and ready to pass judgment on you so that you have to be very exact you know and you have to get the right solution. And most of the solutions in the beginning. When I first saw the site I felt as if I was standing on a concrete beach. And in fact one of the early suggestions came into my mind was making a concrete sailboat an earlier idea

is revolved around the concept of an art of some kind of bread arch. It was like a band flung in the air. I think it was reaction to the open air I felt here. Then I shifted from that probably my wife with whom I discuss all these things had something to do with it she reminded me of the umbrella. And after Christmas in 78 I took apart the Christmas tree stripped off the needles so I had just the branches. And then I cut the branches up into segments and I rebuilt the Christmas tree as a Crusoe umbrella. I had quite a few models going then it was just a matter of trying to transform it into something that can be built on a large scale. Originally I had this position that I was experimenting with different things I don't know how do you ever have any particular place. To use standards. You know you to put it this way or

you put. One of the problems with this. Because it. Makes them very vulnerable to wind. This might be interesting that you but it would have to be here. It's got. To be very different from. The original model for the Couso umbrella was made from a paper plate because a paper plate had. A certain dome like structure in it already stamped into the paper so that I could begin to feel the curve. So I just found a paper plate I think it was leftover from a performance or perhaps more likely left of my birthday party. You know the year before. And so I made a model using the paper plate I made several versions of this. This is the most finished up and then this is my it was

made a little bit earlier which has a longer stem. The proportions are quite different. This was the one I finally settled on. I had tried very hard to get a clue in advance as to what he was working on and he was very careful to keep that a secret. I don't think anybody knew really what it was until he actually presented the model. And then there was no difficulty. Everybody everybody liked the model and we told him Go ahead. It's always been impossible for me to to keep the model for example a secret which is what I would prefer I would prefer to submit a model and have it remain. Unpublished and commented on until the actual piece gets up because the actual thesis is. Another story completely. But that doesn't work that way. So while you're building the sculpture the the community is making judgments

and conducting polls on the basis of a very imperfect model that you present and what's been published in the paper. That satisfies a growing market for public sculpting. And got incorporated has become the country's foremost fabricator of large scale metal art. It's just that the taking some skilled workers bring the ideas and some of America's leading sculptors to reality. That. We. Might. Make. It's a challenge to put a personal concept through the factory. I don't think you can do it in every factory. I think uncocked specializes in trying to follow the artist's way of thinking. It is a collaborative effort and we do work very closely with the artists and there

is a. Sort of an unspoken understanding that. Develops over a long period of doing this and we've worked with Chua's since the late 60s so we've known him a long time and Bobby a little bit and most of the rambling on the piece and forming you know has particularly worked with crossover and there is a lot of understanding going back and forth discussion about things that goes on there which is part of what makes the whole job so rewarding to us. Well I think you have an intuitive feeling that whether or not something can be done and working on the model we obviously thought about what would happen if they did accept it in the sense that it wouldn't build a model that you couldn't later on use as the guys were building a larger piece. Once it was accepted then we went into formal engineering and really figured out. The necessary thickness of the model and the way of attaching one piece to another and so on. And of course all of that was.

Working very closely with cause in terms of the ultimate thickness of the section which is five inches that was an aesthetic decision and once that was made then the decision of. The material itself being half inch plate was in engineering. Robinson Crusoe had very little technology and he was able to make things in a certain way. When you have machines like that Lippincott's you can make things another way. The critical point of course is how much you are affected by the forms of the technology. When you work in a factory there is a tendency to select the subjects that have mechanical possibilities like a razor blade. I mean a razor blade would be very easy to make in a factory whereas the Kusama belt is very difficult to make you take an organic concept. See if that will survive the technology process. But I do spend a lot of time up there. I keep an eye on things for example the patterns that I had I had made for the bell. I had to remake on a large

scale to be absolutely sure that all of those scissor curbs were carried along in the enlargement and were put into the metal side to keep an eye on that. Any piece that we do we always set up and I want to make sure that everything fits together. Properly but also for. A final look at it from sort of the artist's point of view in terms of any changes that might be needed to be made. But in the case of this piece we set it up and additionally to do the final fitting and drilling of balls. You. Know.

Well in terms of distance running what the piece is about a quarter of an hour can be about six inches. You have a challenge of this piece to get those 11 sections fabricated and the way Glaus want them to be in terms of the contour of the edge and to get each one to fit the other properly and in the right proportions because they really you know model. Because. Yeah. It's very important that it. That it. Seems to be. Falling. Seems to. Think. So there's the problem. With this. So you know how do you feel. They have a piece of wood and.

Hope. That. You. Get. That. Build. Up and having looked at it all the time and it was a very very big personality and a very small thing. Looking at the bottom line the scale is. Reduced in size. There's a kind of AW which comes with scale. There's just a kind of surprise element that something can be both large and small and be the same thing. I give back a little further I guess look out there. Don't worry about it. OK you tell me. Just. Up or down or what I do probably do. If you have that effect too when you look at the large sculpture by positioning yourself in different places you can give a very large or very small

aspect. When you become sensitive to scale. The world can become very much more interesting. So. Certainly scale is a very essential to this whole process of enlarging. What. Really. I. Mean

I. Have heard in the last two years to concentrate on public sculpture. There was no such thing 10 years ago you made your art and you made it to the people. Someone buys it for a. Relatively small amount and puts it away somewhere where nobody can see it five or ten years later sells it for a thousand times more than they paid for it you know and you get none of the money to your art which you felt strongly about is just used as a kind of trading device so you know it's like money. It's usually hidden. That's the worst part. This way anybody can see it doesn't cost anything. You know all that stuff should mean something to me other than just being large. It fits in with my idea of how art should be shown to people and should be used. Well this will be about 10 photos. It's like. Ukraine. Reason. That I.

Said. All of. This here would be. You. Don't want to get in the way of these holes because the next piece is going to be right above here. I've got my. Room here. I just try to. Remember. That D.M. growth target of our umbrella. I'm going to be a regular. Old. Vergas. One of the outstanding sculptors in the United States. I think we're very lucky to have everything here. I mean the dorm is going to back to you kind of a window. On the corner. And the. Park could be over here. So the diagonal will. Follow in the same direction as

the capital. I didn't want to face it directly at the building. What did the price of more into the open space there's so what. You know. What they will do all kinds of things. It's a three dimensional piece. You can see it from so many different ways that if you. Were however you want to position it in relation to the sides you can probably do it by just moving yourself around. I tend to like things that float. But I tend to think about whether things are following or denying gravity. I mean it could be just as interesting to have an extremely heavy one as to have a life form. But perhaps the most interesting kind of form is the one that is actually heavy but seems to be very light and the umbrella is form like that. I've tried to do with the umbrella is to keep it as light as possible. So that that contributes I think to the overall openness of the concept. I'm very much

aware of openness. You. Can. Call or. Name or speak to me. So I have to like the color you need a very strong color outside. Because the light changes all the time. It changes all the time you had. The Sun. Coming up. PS. Also if this was a day. Like today you'll be having. Darker color because you get more and conga line into the sky. Also every everything else around here is white. And then it gets closer to the mantle. Today. And besides that it was also green because it's like. They are again a coat shape. So it means also more natural color. Have you been inside the hotel Martin. No. No it doesn't look like much of the outside. It

looks a little bit like that will tell a cross of about Colorado very close to that. But when you go inside there's a grandiose lobby and a picturesque bar you know in the back. You should take a look inside. Have this strange thing. The strangest thing of all is that they have light fixtures in the ceiling that are just like the umbrella. So. Will have a look at them. OK. All right. I haven't been in the room in the lobby with you check it out this week for. Most sites that I get don't give the spectator much of a chance or me much of a chance because I have a little space and here you have a very open site. It's a maximum site. From the point of view of how to see the sculpture you see it's small and you can see it large. You can see it from all directions. You can even see it from below because you can walk down into the

fountain area and you can see it above you. You. Me that. If. A piece is going to stand in front of all the

citizens of the city like Des Moines for a long period of time. It has to be simple enough so that they don't tire of it. I think people would tire more of a complex form. So it has to be a simple form with maximum suggestion. And the idea is to pack as much suggested into the form as possible and yet not make it vague. It isn't that these things are very profitable. I think that in this case I hope to make some money in Chicago in the back to call them. I wound up actually $40000 behind. Now in the case of the umbrella. I haven't added up the costs but probably it will cost around 75000 for the fabrication. And then there's the transportation which I have to pay for and the installation which I have to pay for and the foundation which I have paid for. Well I think it looks very successful. In all respects. It

turned out the way I hoped. But. These are the last factors like the color and. In relation to the site which is very difficult to predict and the scale in relation to the site which is also very difficult to predict. Came up. So. That's part of the interest in making a sculpture the size in the public situation. I have to leave the object to take care of itself. And I just have to hope that I've. Put enough into it so that it does fit into the surroundings. You don't know exactly how much an individual person gets. Out of work. But it's it's very

hard to test that's something you can all tell over a long period of time. Perhaps it will creep into people's writings perhaps people will be. Getting tons. Of their feelings. In. Letters or poems or something like that. In