Clothespin 1976

Claes Oldenburg made this Clothespin sculpture. It looks like it's made of steel, and it’s placed right in the heart of the city. Imagine Oldenburg, scaling up something so tiny and domestic to this huge scale. What does it mean to blow up the everyday? It makes you think about the things we usually overlook, right? This giant clothespin makes you see its form, the curve where the clothes get pinched, the tension of the spring. I feel like he's asking us to reconsider what we value as art, maybe he also wanted to bring a sense of playfulness into the urban environment. He’s taking the ordinary and making it monumental. That’s what artists do, they show us new ways of seeing.