Pop Art Sculpture
Another American pop artist Claes Oldenburg made large pop sculptures during the 1960s. His sculpture of a large banana peel standing on one peel exists in multiple copies in different places. I wish to share my thoughts as to which of the peel sculptures I chose to show.
I saw one of the banana peels myself in a courtyard at Stanford University. Strong sun, strong shadows, and distraction behind ruled that one out. A photo of another at mid-day out in a field with acres of field behind made the banana seem lonely and out of place. The photo below, the one I chose, is called Floating Peel from 2002, as shown at the Pace Wildenstein Gallery in New York City.
There are some distractions due to a ceiling light bank and tall windows, but the lighting and shadows reveal the form and color ‒ a rich mellow yellow ‒ very well. Further, the position makes the banana look like it is striding in and showing itself off. Is it my imagination, or do you see it too?
Structurally, it is perplexing how the banana is able to stand on just one contact point. Photos of the banana peel in the fabrication stage show a plate attached to the bottom tip of the peel that it will stand on. The plate must be embedded and cemented into the floor, hiding the connection.
Pop Art Spacial Collage
Another Pop artist, Tom Wesselmann, made a collage in 1963. We expect a collage to be flat but this one is in three dimensions. He named it Collage and it creates quite a startling effect if it is well placed in a museum so that you just come upon it unexpectedly.
Do you see, the nearer objects: red drape, hamper, door, bath mat, and floor? They are all real physical objects. The rest is a painting ‒ a comic fantasy. You might say this is a diorama, like a little stage set. A child’s sense of wonder and fantasy came over me when I first saw this piece in a museum in Cologne, Germany.
