Analysis Of The Lipstick Monument By Oldenburg

The way in which Oldenburg’s work possesses both implicit and explicit identities enhances Pop Art’s protest value. While The Lipstick Monument had unambiguous military imagery, Giant Three-Way Plug is simply an electrical plug on the surface. Although its military aspects may not be obvious to modern viewers without context, it would have been back when it was created in 1970. The uproar of the Vietnam War was in part due to the new technology that virtually broadcasted this gruesome war, making military tanks almost a commercial product. However, for such an object to be banned, the administration or political establishment would have to recognize it as a military tank and not an electrical plug. In this way, Oldenburg and the Pop Art movement
Stemming from his experience participating in the Happenings, Oldenburg adds a unique layer to his works by incorporating performance art. By creating The Lipstick Monument, a gravely controversial piece based on a highly contentious topic that would be place on a renowned university’s campus, Oldenburg challenges institutions and their confinements of free speech. He furthers this statement by making the piece so provocative that it would be banned from college campuses all across the country. However in doing so, the institutions are allowing the piece to function as performance art, for by banning it from campus to campus the tank literally move across the country, displaying the conflict overseas on American soil. By incorporating this layer of performance art, the cause Oldenburg and his audience are protesting for always prevails. If the institution bans the piece, the protest is active through the means of it moving across the country. If the institution allows for the piece to stay, the protest is active simply through its presence. Continuing his theme of embedding inconspicuous symbolism in his work, Oldenburg enables Pop Art as an indestructible and unsilenceable force of
Launching his New York career, Oldenburg created exhibitions using “found objects.” Exploring the relationship between art and its environment, his second show was comprised of his expressionist paintings placed in an artificial urban environment. This set, being made to look like an urban street, was made up of found objects from the city. He juxtaposed the gestural strokes of the paintings with the items representing the “decaying urban slums, which created “dream-like” illusion of movement in the scene. From the beginning of his career, Oldenburg experimented with objects’ relation to the environment and would continue to do so during the Pop Art movement when creating Giant Three-Way Plug. By placing it in front of the St Louis Art Museum’s classic Greco-Roman exterior, the industrial characteristic of the piece is enhanced. In addition, this juxtaposition calls attention to the piece as it appears out of place with the rest of the environment. Giant Three-Way Plug sits on top of a pile of mulch, surrounded by a sea of well-groomed grass. This is a crucial part of the piece, for the plug sinks into the mulch on one side. By doing this, Oldenburg creates the sense that the plug, or military tank, is moving over uneven terrain, eluding even further to the concept of war. In doing this, Oldenburg geniusly infuses