The Artistic Design and Sociopolitical Significances of a Plug

Name: Gary Wang

Assignment: Contextual Analysis

Section TA: Heather Read

Date: March 27th, 2017

                       The Artistic Design and Sociopolitical Significances of a Plug

       Throughout the human history, different social and cultural environments have fostered distinct styles of artworks. Ranging from the gothic art of the Middle Ages that depicts mainly grandiose religious entities to the 19th century’s realism paintings concerned with ordinary daily subjects, artworks produced in different periods inform the artists’ concerns in their respective social milieu. Because the evolution of art and the development of human society are much related, a wave of modern artistic movements emerged as the human society advanced into the modern era amid the Industrial Revolution, world wars, and globalization. Among the late modern artistic movements, Pop art started to arise after the second world war, with a school of artists drawing inspirations from mass media and producing paintings, sculptures of popular culture objects.^[1] The sculpture Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A, made by the American pop artist Claes Oldenburg during 1970, embodies the artistic reproduction of popular commercial goods in the post-world war II consumer society.^[2] Presently displayed outdoor in the left front of Saint Louis Art Museum, the actual sculpture is many times the actual size of a common household three-way plug and buried partially into the ground. Such a magnified sculpture on the outdoor ground elevates a mundane, meaningless object to a fine art piece that carries not only artistic merits but also sociopolitical significances.

             Though the sculpture Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A represents a kitsch household object, it possesses conceptual artistic qualities that rise above its appearance. Influenced by the French artist Marcel Duchamp, who promoted ready-made goods to the status of fine arts, Oldenburg applied the similar artistic technique to the creation of the sculpture and turned a functional item into an artwork.^[3] Unlike traditional sculptures concerned more with classical themes, the sculpture Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A depicts a common object that itself does not inherit much artistic value. But, the idea and concept involved in the sculpture Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A transcend the concern of its subject matter and lift it up to the status of a remarkable art piece. The concept behind the construction of the sculpture lies in the object’s relationship with the natural environment as Oldenburg views the piece as an amalgamation of the mechanical and the organic.^[4] Since the sculpture is placed in an outdoor natural environment, one see the natural weathering and gradual deterioration process as part of the artworks’ life cycle. The sculpture made of steel and bronze endures and adapts to the natural corrosion caused by rain, snow and sun exposure, evolving to its current state. Moreover, he integrates naturalness into the object. Instead of sitting straight up on the ground, the sculpture is half buried at an oblique angle as if it were dropped from high above. In fact, before the selection of the site for Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A, Oldenburg gave much considerations to the spontaneity of the sculpture: “I had thought of it as kind of having fallen out of the sky like an acorn or an apple or a piece of Russian satellite or something or a meteor.”^[5] At the Saint Louis Art Museum site, the positioning of the sculpture concurs with his own vision and follows the natural law of gravity. The sculpture’s natural state and its ongoing relationship with the environment fulfill Oldenburg’s initial intention and assign the sculpture conceptual artistic qualities the artist envisioned.

             Apart from its artistic significance, the sculpture Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A contains important political messages. After the end of second World War, the United States and Soviet Union with their opposing political ideologies entered the era of Cold War. To promote its image in the western hemisphere, the United States government launched a cultural war against Soviet Union’s socialist beliefs. The battle between the two nations occurred on an intellectual level, particularly in the art field. If artists were the soldiers at the battle front during the cultural war, then their artworks would be their weapon. The comprehensible nature of the sculpture Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A reinforces the democratic ideals promoted in the American society. Like the early abstract expressionists who conversed democratic ideals through their unconventional representations of lines and forms, pop artists abandoned the traditional themes of high art.^[6] Instead, they created artworks out of mass-produced popular objects targeted to a larger audience, and the sculpture Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A embodies such a vision of democratic society where each ordinary citizen can appreciate a distinctive type of art. Indeed, the universal familiarity with electric power plugs allows the public to understand the essence of the artwork without much difficulty. Also, the outdoor display location provides the large audience an open, convenient access to the artwork. Rather being curated inside the art museum, the sculpture sits publicly on the ground and draws glimpses and views from the museum visitors. Like Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A, many of Oldenburg’s other sculptures of pop-culture objects are exhibited in open public space.^[7] Clothespin, a steel sculpture by the artist, is located on the city street in downtown Philadelphia while Batcolumn, which takes the shape of a baseball bat, stands across from the Presidential Tower in the Chicago downtown district.^[8] Viewers could access them just as easily as buying these mass-produced objects from a store. The universal understanding of the subject matter and the open access to the artwork communicate a political message that the system of democracy is well established and reflected in many aspects of the American society, even in the field of art.