The best that can be said for these huge ‘sculptures’ – a denigration of the noun – is that they can provide opportunities for amusing pictures but if my apartment faced one I would likely turn to a life of crime, procure some high explosive and rig the thing in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n
Sometimes they are placed well away from homes, like the Cupid Bow and Arrow on San Francisco’s Embarcadero. It’s mildly amusing in a gauche sort of way, sufficiently isolated to prevent it from becoming an eyesore and, after a while, I imagine one walks past it without noticing. Wit, whimsy and lightness are strangers to the Oldenburg school of public works.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.pindelski.org\/Blog\/Cupids_Bow.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCupid’s Bow and the Oakland Bay Bridge, Embarcadero, SF. G1, kit lens @ 14mm, 1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO320.<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n
Oldenburg’s works are now to be found in every big American city, the municipal planners proving yet again that one of the key dictates of government employment is a total lack of original thinking and a wild disregard for the wise use of taxpayers’ money.<\/p>\n
But the other day I did come across a neat piece which had everything Oldenburg’s lugubrious works lack. Humor, lightness and smart placement. And not a taxpayer cent involved. This pair of martini olives shaped into a heart with a swizzle stick denoting Cupid’s arrow, can be found in the forecourt of a restaurant not a thousand yards south of Oldenburg’s charmless bow and arrow. And it really works well.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.pindelski.org\/Blog\/Giant_Olives.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMartini olive heart. G1, kit zoom @ 23mm, 1\/1250, f\/4.7, ISO320.<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n
MoMo’s restaurant<\/a> is located at Second and Townsend Streets in San Francisco and I wouldn’t go there to order girlie drinks, if I were you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Getting tired. I recall the first time I saw one of Claes Oldenburg’s public sculptures. Union Square, NYC, 1981. It was a toothbrush some seven stories tall. Or maybe it was a corn-on-the-cob. I forget. After a while these giant daily objects all meld into one. Rarely has the old dictum “When you have seen … Continue reading Claes Oldenburg<\/span>