Giant Soft Fan

Claes Oldenburg, 1966–67 · Gallery 413 · Floor 4

It hangs from the ceiling on chains. Ten feet of black vinyl, and every part of it has given up. Four blades. Fat and rounded, like cartoon shoe soles. The two pointing sideways droop like a dog's ears. This is Giant Soft Fan, made in 1966 and '67. Basically, Oldenburg took a tabletop fan, made it ten feet tall, and stuffed it with foam. White stitches run up the traffic-cone base. One cord coils, ending in a plug the size of a basketball. Oldenburg had a rule. "I begin by removing the function of the thing." So he made a fan that can't fan. It looks ready to work. It never will. It went into America's pavilion at the 1967 World's Fair in Montreal. A giant American fan that couldn't cool anybody. He had drawn the idea once before. A giant fan on Staten Island, blowing a breeze up the bay. That one was for an architecture magazine. Two years later, he draws the fan again. This time, he puts it on Liberty Island. Right where the Statue of Liberty stands. Not beside her. Instead of her. He had an explanation. New York gets hot. A steady breeze for lower Manhattan. At least, that was one version. Sure. Put a giant fan where the Statue of Liberty is, at the front door to the country, and you hear the other joke. Is it welcoming people in? Or blowing them back out? Oldenburg said the fan could be an image of America. But he hadn't drawn a conclusion. He'd been born in Sweden and raised here. Either way, this one isn't blowing anybody anywhere. Look at the plug. The prongs are wood.

▶ Listen on Listen to Frank

Also in Gallery 413