Cupid's Span (collaboration with van Bruggen) 2002

Editor: Here we have Claes Oldenburg's and Coosje van Bruggen’s *Cupid's Span*, a monumental sculpture made of steel completed in 2002. I’m really drawn to the bold juxtaposition of its playful form against the hard lines of the San Francisco cityscape. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Formally, one observes an intersection of the organic with the geometric. Note how the artists have abstracted the bow and arrow to its essential curvilinear and linear components. How does the angle of the arrow relative to the bow impact your reading of the sculpture? Editor: It looks incomplete, doesn't it? As if the arrow is piercing the ground but the bow remains unbent and ready. It isn't actually taut, it is relaxed. Is it the potential for connection instead of a fixed symbol of it? Curator: Precisely! Consider how the artists have strategically employed negative space. The gap between the bow and the arrow's trajectory becomes as important as the physical sculpture itself. Have they created an unfulfilled expectation of a traditional relationship, instead suggesting a potential, a dialogue, between forms? Editor: I suppose that's part of the interest of modernism, is it not, this abstract language to symbolize modern issues? It's like it is a gesture to something beyond itself... but also still only an arrow in the ground. Curator: Exactly. In its abstraction, the sculpture avoids didactic pronouncements, instead prompting viewers to consider the formal relationships—the play of line, form, and the tension between absence and presence, while creating discourse on the viewers relationship to urban space. Editor: It certainly reframes one's experience within the urban environment by emphasizing specific shapes against a traditional backdrop. Thank you, I appreciate this new way of engaging with it! Curator: Indeed, it invites a re-evaluation of urban aesthetics, creating a stimulating conversation between sculpture and skyline. Thank you for your engaging observations.