- Giant Soft Fan–Ghost Version
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With his oversized, soft-sculpture version of a common household fan, Claes Oldenburg brings a surprising sense of humor and irreverence to the gallery space. In Giant Soft Fan—Ghost Version, Oldenburg takes a common desk fan and enlarges it to nearly 10 feet tall. Instead of using the original material of the industrial fan—metal—he swaps hard for soft and realizes his sculpture in canvas.
Oldenburg is one of a number of artists who, in the 1960s, began to examine the objects and images of consumer culture. These so-called Pop artists turned everyday items into compositional sources for their art. Oldenburg's jarring sense of scale and unexpected use of materials make his reconstructions of everyday objects appear imposing, yet also soft and droopy. He reverses the viewer's expectations of what makes a monumental sculpture. The subtitle of this work, Ghost Version, refers to the sculpture's white color; Oldenburg also made a companion Giant Soft Fan in black vinyl, now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York
ProvenanceThe artist; [Sidney Janis Gallery, New York]; given to MFAH, 1967.
Exhibition HistorySidney Janis Gallery, New York, May 1967.
University of St.Thomas, Houston, March 5–March 7,1968.
"The Machine," University of St.Thomas, Houston, March 25–May 18, 1969;Museum of Art, San Francisco, June 26–August 24, 1969.
"Claes Oldenburg," Museum of Modern Art, New York, September 22–November 23, 1969.
"Oldenburg's Analogues, Metamorphoses, and Sources," Rice University Institute for the Arts, Houston, April 13–April 20, 1970.
"Claes Oldenburg: Object Into Monument," Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, December 7, 1971–February 6, 1972; University Art Museum, Berkeley, February 28–April 9, 1972; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, May 11–June 18, 1997; Fort Worth Art Center Museum, Fort Worth, July 10–August 20, 1972; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, September 18–October 29, 1972; The Art Institute of Chicago, January–February 1972.
Walker Art Museum, Minneapolis, March–November, 1973.
"A Century of Modern Sculpture: 1882-1982," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, January 14, 1983–January 31, 1984.
"The Rhyme and the Reason: Selections from the Menil Collection at the Grand Palais," Grand Palais, Paris, April 2–July 31, 1984.
"Pop Art: The Object Transformed," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, July 28–December 29, 1991.
"Claes Oldenburg: An Anthology," National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., February 12–May 7, 1995; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, June 25–September 4, 1995; Guggenheim Museum, New York, October 7, 1995–January 14, 1996; Kunst-und Austellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, February 23–May 12, 1996; Hayward Gallery, London, June 6–August 19, 1996.
"Modernism in a Century of Change: From Object to Icon - The Art of Assemblage," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, June 21–August 30, 1998.
"Modern and Contemporary Art: Spotlight on the Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 7–August 27, 2000.
"Art at Midcentury: Spotlight on the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, April 13–September 3, 2001.
"A Modern Patronage: de Menil Gifts to American and European Museums," The Menil Collection, Houston, June 8–September 16, 2007.
"Pop to Popism," Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, November 1, 2014–March 1, 2015.
"Selections from the Museum's Collection: Post-War Painting and Sculpture," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, May 5–September 5, 2016.
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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