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Figure 1 Architectural rendering of Free Stamp in front of Sohio headquarters in Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio [1986], drawing. Courtesy of the Oldenburg van Bruggen Studio
Aristotle considered objects that have a certain mimetic basis in reality to be appealing because they delight the eye and engage the intellect. In this he anticipated Étienne Gilson, who would refer to the easy pleasure of representational art. This would seem to be enough for an audience to appreciate Cleveland’s Free Stamp sculpture. In the sixteenth century, the painter and artists’ biographer Giorgio Vasari wrote of works of art as piacevoli inganni, or pleasing deceits, indicating that they were something other than what they pretended to be. When is a hand stamp not a hand stamp? When it is enlarged and no longer functional. But then is it still a hand stamp? Or is it just a pleasing deceit? Cleveland’s Free Stamp confirmed the observations of Aristotle and Vasari. It was a late entry in the rich tradition of large-scale sculptures by Oldenburg and van Bruggen placed in major cities throughout the world, from a rescaled matchbook in Barcelona to a pair of walk-in binoculars in Venice, California.
The metamorphosis of the Cleveland sculpture can be traced from the artists’ original hand stamp design for Sohio by charting the steps of its installation. The unusual chain of events following the commission of the sculpture, its subsequent rejection, and the timing of these events shaped the outcome. As Oldenburg and van Bruggen assembled the upright stamp in its neutral, painted undercoat, then tipped and tilted it into its nestled location in Willard Park, they transformed a work of totemic stature into a useful and familiar shape from the bureaucratic world (fig. 2).
The outdoor sculptures of Oldenburg and van Bruggen are fanciful works of impressive scale with a foundation in the imagery of daily life. Their clean lines and pure forms demand meticulous craftsmanship. If Free Stamp is anything, it is an expression of formal compactness. For some, the pleasure of its settled beauty in Willard Park will be enough, as the sensuous rotundity of its handle complements the sharp edges framing the rectangular message, FREE (fig. 3). It changes when circled, as the flat statement of its lettering is countered by the rounded handle, where a play of concave against convex also takes place. Its swollen forms, cheerful colors, and tilting position offer a foil to the repetitive rhythms of the classical orders in the adjacent city hall.
Figure 2 Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Free Stamp, 1991, steel and aluminum painted with polyurethane enamel, lateral view, 28 ft. 10 in. × 26 ft. × 49 ft. (8.8 × 7.9 × 14.9 m). Willard Park, Cleveland, Ohio. Gift of BP America, Inc., to the City of Cleveland. Photo by John T. Seyfried. © ICA-Art Conservation 2015
Figure 3 Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Free Stamp, frontal view. Photo by John T. Seyfried. © ICA-Art Conservation 2015
Free Stamp adds new shapes and hues to Willard Park’s greenery and fountain. In this setting of park and public buildings, Free Stamp is immense, flamboyant, and almost vulgar (fig. 4). Its inflated size is entirely appropriate for its architectural setting. Spectators gather around it, like Lilliputians filled with curiosity, to wonder about its dimensions. Invited by its whimsy and friendliness, the viewer is tempted to slap its big, red rump, until overwhelmed by its scale, much as the medieval faithful were by their Gothic cathedrals, the columns of which extended without fixed proportion as if to confirm that God could not be measured by man. As an oversized stamp, its implications are awe inspiring, causing one to wonder about the race of giants who placed it there.
Figure 4 Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Free Stamp, rear view. Photo by John T. Seyfried. © ICA-Art Conservation 2015
The forms of the sculpture are clean and simple, free of digressions, non sequiturs, and false starts. It is easy to understand the logic of its morphology. The outlines of the sculpture, neither too flabby nor too taut, are, in their perfect tension, the source of its grace. Free Stamp makes a classical statement but not an academic one, because its shape is not an exact enlargement in reproduction of a commercial hand stamp; it has been inflated and cropped with changed proportions. The spectator, on viewing Free Stamp, can read it to sense the skills in its making. If the sculpture is so articulate and radiant with conscious thought, how does one explain its initial rejection?
1
SOHIO, FREE STAMP, AND BP
In the design of Sohio’s new corporate headquarters in downtown Cleveland’s venerable Public Square, the company’s executives included the base for a work of sculpture which would stand at the left of a slightly sloping site as one entered the atrium of the building (fig. 5). The chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Sohio, Alton Whitehouse Jr., approved the design of a hand stamp submitted by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen in December 1982, and the sculptors presented a full prospectus with five drawings on June 22, 1984, which led to the contract of July 26, 1985.
Whitehouse’s choice of sculptors had been guided by the architect Gyo Obata and by Sherman E. Lee, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Lee first mentioned Isamu Noguchi to Whitehouse, then suggested Oldenburg as “an unconventional young sculptor.”1 Whitehouse’s initial exchange with the sculptor was informal, with the artist bringing models, plans, and drawings of some of his projects. The Philadelphia Clothespin appealed to Whitehouse, who always preferred the verticality and original location for the Cleveland sculpture.
Whitehouse had also been a trustee at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and his commitment to the arts in Cleveland was recognized by his election as president by the museum’s board of trustees on December 9, 1985.2 Shortly after Sohio returned to John D. Rockefeller’s original title of Standard Oil Co., the corporation was acquired by the British Petroleum Company, and Robert P. Horton was confirmed by the board of what would soon be BP America as its new chairman and chief executive officer. He replaced Whitehouse on March 11, 1986, and quickly announced that the commissioned sculpture was “inappropriate” and would not be installed.3 Because initial payments for the commission had been made and assembly of the sculpture begun, Horton soon suggested that the work be placed in another downtown location, even offering it as a gift to the city of Cleveland.4
Figure 5 Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Free Stamp sited on model of Sohio Headquarters in Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio, 1983, wood and latex paint, 3-1/2 × 2-1/8 × 1-1/8 in. (8.9 × 5.4 × 2.9 cm). Courtesy of the Oldenburg van Bruggen Studio
The first hints that the project may have gone awry appeared in a Wall Street Journal article recounting the replacement of Mr. Whitehouse by Mr. Horton.5 The article, “Taking Charge,” had three subtitles, the last of which was “Huge Rubber Stamp May Go.” The story related how BP’s Sir Peter Walters had rallied board members in the ouster of Whitehouse,
