Claes Oldenburg (Batcolumn)

1977, Cor-Ten steel painted gray, H 100 ft.
Commissioned by the U.S. General Services Administration through its Art-in-Architecture Program

LOCATION:
Harold Washington Social Security Administration Building Plaza
600 W. Madison St.

Chicago’s skyscrapers, chimney stacks, neo-classical columns, steel bridge cross-bracing and construction cranes inspired the design of Claes Oldenburg’s heroic-scaled, lattice-shell baseball bat. On observing Chicago’s flat terrain, the Swedish-born artist once commented, “the real art here is architecture, or anything that really stands up.” Oldenburg’s Batcolumn demonstrates the artist’s fascination with scale and the changes in the significance of everyday objects when they are enlarged to monumental proportions. Like all of Oldenburg’s monuments, Batcolumn combines a humorous and irreverent attitude toward popular objects with meticulous construction details and handling of scale and proportion. It can alternately be seen as a reference to historical monumental columns, a salute to the American institution of baseball or a tribute to the steel industry.

Nearby:
• Untitled murals, Ilya Bolotowsky, Harold Washington Social Security Administration, lobby and cafeteria, 600 W. Madison St.
• Time Out, J. Seward Johnson, Presidential Towers lawn, 614 W. Monroe St.