Twenty-five years later, the artists define their collaboration as “a true unity of opposites.”

Van Bruggen and Oldenburg at the inauguration of the “Bottle of Notes,” 1994, in Middlesbrough, England.

Oldenburg explains that each piece, whether destined for a gallery or an outdoor site, follows a similar progression. “First you talk about it. Then you have the drawings, which I do but we work out together,” he says. “Then we get into a model and that model goes through several stages. It starts out very simple and it gets more complicated, and the more complicated it gets, the closer it gets to realization.”

“Often it is my vision through Claes’ hand,” van Bruggen says. “But then also it is sometimes Claes’ vision, which is then changed by me in composition or configuration. Each work is different.”

In a world where big-name artists usually have massive studios populated by numerous assistants, Oldenburg and van Bruggen personally craft their models in the first-floor studio or, more recently, work out their ideas on a computer with the help of a technician. Oldenburg, who embraces technological advances, concedes, “It’s reached a point where it is better to do it on [the computer] and then it can be cast into three dimensions out of this image.” The fabrication takes place off-site, at one of a number of factories the artists use, depending on the techniques required and the sculpture’s final destination.

Between working at home, visiting new sites (a heavily guarded secret), and overseeing production at the factories, the couple keeps a packed schedule. Last year alone, they installed two large-scale projects: “The Big Sweep,” a broom caught dynamically in movement outside the new Daniel Libeskind–designed Denver Art Museum, and “Spring,” an upright shell reaching 20 meters in downtown Seoul, South Korea, which marks the start of the recently uncovered Cheonggyecheon stream. In addition, they fabricated several of their soft, life-sized musical instruments, earlier editions of which were originally shown in their exhibition “The Music Room” at PaceWildenstein in 2005. Their biggest achievement, however, was selecting the work and writing the corresponding catalogue entries for “Sculpture by the Way.” This monumental exhibition, in the Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Italy, traced Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s last 20 years of production through drawings, small- and large-scale models, and final works. (The exhibition is at the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona through June and is being considered by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., for its 2008 program.)

The pace is not likely to slow, as demand for their work remains high. But with life and work so entwined, the artists clearly enjoy the time they spend together. Van Bruggen sighs and admits, “We travel a lot, but the travel is also a time for us, in the evening, to be together and to talk about projects and new concepts. It is what I call ‘solitude for two.’”

---

Art & Antiques Atlanta correspondent Rebecca Dimling Cochran is an independent curator and critic.