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Quote by Claes Oldenburg

“I just started to do my own thing for about a year and a half, and I worked in the evening selling phonograph records. Then I said to myself, "I'm afraid I have to go to New York after all."”

Quote by Claes Oldenburg

Author

Claes Oldenburg

Claes Oldenburg is a renowned American sculptor, known for his large-scale public art installations. His works are inspired by everyday objects, reimagined and magnified to create both familiar and unfamiliar visual experiences. more

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“You can take an object and simply put anything you want in that object, and I accessed that partly through Freudian ideas.”

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“It was easy to get a job at the Cedar Bar because people came and went, but I didn't like the atmosphere. Instead, I got a job at Cooper Union Library. I stayed at Cooper Union for seven years; it was my salvation. While I worked there, I also read books of every kind.”

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“In 1958 I finally found a large enough apartment on the Lower East Side, where I reverted to figure painting. I drew and painted quite a lot of figures and nudes. People would come and pose for me.”

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“Judson Church was a very important place because they believed in art. They also took care of drug addicts. Without the Judson, nothing could have happened.”

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“They asked me to do a show, and I was planning on showing my figure paintings. But my friends told me I shouldn't - the paintings were good but a little old-fashioned. They said, "Why don't you show the other stuff?" I had also been making rather strange objects, more in the Freudian tradition.”

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“The art world was very small and the people got together at parties. There was less commercialism.”

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“I was very happy to be living in New York at that time, more than in the present time. Now it's all commerce.”

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“Andy [Warhol] was on the scene, but he wasn't an artist at first; he was more an illustrator. He was always surrounded by about ten people who worshipped him. He'd go to a party and they would all come along. But he was drawing shoes and that sort of thing.”

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“My work doesn't have the same rules as, say, Andy [Warhol]'s work. But it's gathered together for the simple reason that we all worked with the images and objects around us.”

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“My rule was not to paint things as they were. I wasn't copying; I was remaking them as my own.”

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