Lot 44 | Claes Oldenburg | "Akron Khaki Q"

OLDENBURG, CLAES
1929 Stockholm - 2022 New York

Title: "Akron Khaki Q".
Date: 1976.
Technique: Coloured synthetic material.
Measurement: 45 x 51 x 30cm.
Notation: Monogrammed, titled and inscribed on the underside: COL (ligiert) AKRON KhaKiQ 1#.


Prototype for the edition of 12 plastic and 12 rubber copies.

Provenance:
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin (directly from the artist)

Soft Sculptures
The sculpture by Claes Oldenburg from Kasper König's collection takes up the subject of the 'Inverted Q', which can be found in monumental size in the collection of the Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio and in the sculpture park of the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach. Conceptually, the work is based on Oldenburg's Soft Sculptures, which in the early 1960s reproduced everyday objects, such as pieces of cake or ice-cream cones, enlarged in soft materials. He was able to make these out of fabric with the help of his wife at the time, Patty.

A Q for Ohio
In 1972, Oldenburg was invited by the collector couple Mary and Louis Myers to design a sculpture for the park next to the library. The proposal to choose a letter as a motif in the context of the immediate location was accepted. The letter Q was chosen not least because of its tyre-like shape, as Akron is known as an industrial location for the tyre industry. Oldenburg comments on the form: 'It was a shape that had grown out of some earlier drawings,' and over the years, 'it has been associated as a kind of navel form.' After two years of collaboration with the technicians of the local companies, the realisation came that a realisation in rubber was not possible at the time due to the technology still under development. Oldenburg changes the material to concrete in order to produce the monumental version in four copies. By this time, the Akron Library had decided in favour of a different sculpture. The collector couple Myers acquired the first version from the artist and donated it to the local museum 'Inverted Q', where it is on display today.

Execution in rubber
Oldenburg recalls the creation process: 'I had wanted it to be rubber because that's the main industry in Akron [.] But I realised I couldn't cast a sculpture in rubber more than 18 inches high.' However, the artist did not abandon the realisation in plastic and created smaller models in two versions: twelve pieces in rubber and twelve pieces in plastic. Oldenburg's work executed here demonstrates the artist's joy in experimenting with the creation of the large sculpture and the confrontation and process of finding creative colours.