Pop Art twit.

Had the cast of Monty Python ventured into public sculpture they would first have to have invented Claes Oldenburg, the Swedish Pop Art icon who just passed away, aged 93.

Oldenburg’s thing was large scale reproductions of everyday things – toothbrushes, shuttlecocks and so on – placed in public spaces, and his work is never less than supremely silly.

But with that silliness there is a certain ineffable joy that things so insanely inane should grace public thoroughfares. One’s first reaction of shock turns, as often as not, to a smile at how this supreme fake ‘artist’ fooled the powers that be and got rich in the process.

Here’s my take on ‘Cupid’s Span’ of 2002, found along San Francisco’s Embarcadero:

Click the image to go to the Smithsonian obituary.
Panasonic G1, kit zoom, taken on May 1, 2011.