My rule was not to paint things as they were. I wasn't copying; I was remaking them as my own. Claes Oldenburg More Quotes by Claes Oldenburg More Quotes From Claes Oldenburg All the fun is locking horns with impossibilities. Claes Oldenburg horns fun inspirational I think the Freudian impulse is in everything, so I just accept it. I don't always believe what Freud is saying but it sounds like fun. Claes Oldenburg fun believe thinking 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. Claes Oldenburg drug important art 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. Claes Oldenburg strange stuff littles The sexual is part of everything, and it's highly formalized. I hadn't done figure for a long time. And I thought to myself, "Why not the erotic figure?" Claes Oldenburg erotic why-not long I am for an art of things lost or thrown away. . . I am for an art that one smokes like a cigarette. . . I am for an art that flutters like a flag. Claes Oldenburg cigarette flags art Chicago has a strange metaphysical elegance of death about it. Claes Oldenburg strange chicago cities I knew I wasn't that good a writer, and all I could remember was that I could draw. I'm better at drawing than I am at writing. Claes Oldenburg drawing writing remember 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. Claes Oldenburg jobs book years I went back to the Art Institute, then spent the summer at the Ox-Bow School in Saugatuck, Michigan. That's what really awakened me. I made a lot of oil paintings and my first performance. Claes Oldenburg summer art school Actually, New York is great for playing around. I made a lot of studies for New York-a big vacuum cleaner lying on the Battery in Manhattan. Claes Oldenburg vacuums new-york lying The end of the '60s was a terrible time. I was in Los Angeles then, and I remember the night someone ran into the studio and told us about the Manson murders. Then suddenly something happened, the '60s disappeared. The '70s were completely different. Claes Oldenburg different remember night I knew I had to take my ambition more seriously, so I enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago. Then, in the fall, I went on a tour of my own. I didn't go to New York because that was too well known for its art scene. Claes Oldenburg new-york art fall 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." Claes Oldenburg records new-york years I got a little studio in Chicago and practiced. I realized I had to earn some money. So I went to work for an advertising agency where my job was mostly drawing insects for a company that sold an insecticide spray. Claes Oldenburg agency drawing jobs I had, over the years, collected things, small things, as people do, and I had put them all together and showed them in what became a building in the form of the Geometric Mouse. Claes Oldenburg together people years I always knew America was all about guns. You go to the movies as a kid, everybody's got a gun. Claes Oldenburg gun kids america The thing about the ray gun is, you pick up anything you see on the street that's the shape of a gun. Claes Oldenburg rays shapes gun The right angle is one of the world's basic shapes. Claes Oldenburg angle shapes world I started to draw buildings. I called them Proposed Colossal Monuments - they weren't for real, not for actual building. It was more a critique of architecture. Claes Oldenburg building architecture real
