Giant Soft Fan

Claes Oldenburg · 1966-67

This is Giant Soft Fan, by Claes Oldenburg, nineteen sixty-six: vinyl filled with foam rubber, hanging from wood and plastic tubing. An electric fan is a hard, humming, bladed thing, and Oldenburg made it limp — the joke and the unease are the same gesture.

Medium Vinyl filled with foam rubber, wood, metal, and plastic tubing · Dimensions Fan, approximately 10' x 58 7/8" x 61 7/8" (305 x 149.5 x 157.1 cm), plus cord and plug 24' 3 1/4" (739.6 cm) long · Credit The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection

Hanging beside it in Gallery 413: Untitled, Trio A

More by Claes Oldenburg here: Pastry Case, I, Two Cheeseburgers, with Everything (Dual Hamburgers)