The Free Stamp sculpture is a monumental Pop Art sculpture, which was designed by an American Swedish artist, called Claes Oldenburg. His late wife Coosje van Bruggen assisted him in designing it. The sculpture is strategically placed at Willard Park in Cleveland, Ohio (Oldenburg, 57). The sculpture is a Gulliver-sized rubber stamp with the words FREE written in the stamping area. Aluminum and steel are the materials making up the sculpture and painted with polyurethane enamel. It was commissioned by SOHIO in 1982 but was installed nearly ten years later due to the opposition, it faced from BP since it was viewed as a threat to the company's bureaucracy.
The sculpture is quite conspicuous, owing to its monumental figure and the creativity with which it was landed. The sculpture was initially intended to land in an upright stature, but was instead placed diagonally as if the BP Company, which had previously rejected it, had hurled it in disgust. Oldenburg eventually settled. The words FREE are colored, intensely pink, such that it's hard for these words to go unnoticed. According to Oldenburg, the idea of the rubber stamp was inspired by the Soldiers and Sailors monument, which is located opposite it, which features a triumphal, slender column rising from the revival building.
There exist several similarities between this FREE stamp sculpture and Robert Indiana's love structure. To begin with, the two sculptures are both monumental to ensure that they are easily noticed. Their shapes are creatively designed to capture a viewer’s attention. The love monument is designed in the shape of a square such that two letters occupy the four sides of the square to make it complete (Ryan et al, 82). The FREE sculpture, on the other hand, is designed like a rubber stamp with the words free capturing the attention of viewers at the base of the stamp. The creativity in designing these sculptures owes to the attention they have received worldwide.
The two words FREE and LOVE are powerful and resonate with people all over the world. Oldenburg and Indiana try to give a more profound meaning to these two words. I particularly chose this sculpture because I believe the words FREE relate to everything that people wish to have for free. The sculpture captures the whole idea of freedom. Human beings throughout the world embrace freedom and desire it when it is absent. Freedom is a necessity, and its absence creates a void that can only be filled with its presence. Throughout history, people have continuously fought for their freedom, and for the freedom of others. The civil war for which some people relate the words free was fought to give freedom to the slaves. Humanity is synonymous with freedom, and many organizations have been formed to fight for freedom where people feel that it is being denied. The words LOVE equally resonate with human beings world over. Love is an emotion that is felt by everyone and is essential for every living being. Its absence causes trauma to an individual. People want to have a feeling of being loved and also to feel a sense of belonging. The words LOVE and FREE chosen by these sculptures hence resonate with humanity, and people cannot live in their absence.
The colors used in these sculptures are bold to match the concepts they express. The deep pink used in the FREE sculpture is almost similar to the bright red used in the LOVE sculpture. These colors are an expression of the emotions attached to these words. The colors bring about the importance attached to these words and their necessity in the world that we live in.
The two sculptures both had a passion for Art and pursued it as a profession. Both Indiana and Oldenburg studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago and saw art as a way of expressing ordinary elements in a creative way that would leave an impression on the viewer. Moreover, the two sculptures are also similar in the manner in which they focus on Pop Culture (Shanes, 219). These two strive to make a difference using concepts that resonate with every living soul, and incorporating creativity that fits with the pop culture which they aim to express.
Differences
The differences between the two sculptures can be drawn from their metallic composition. While the LOVE sculpture is made of Polychrome aluminum only, the free stamp sculpture is made of Steel and aluminum. Secondly, while Indiana aimed at portraying the need for love during the Vietnam War, Oldenburg was more into portraying the importance of freedom in every aspect of the society. Many people tried to argue that he drew his idea from the civil war in which he refuted, citing that freedom was an everyday necessity which everyone could resonate with. He wasn't aiming at expressing any particular historical event as people may have thought.
Conclusively, there is an idea behind every existing sculpture. Many of them aim at portraying ideas that are important to humanity and which people can resonate with. They have meanings attached to their existence. Sculpting calls for creativity and for something that many people can identify with to make an impression. These two sculptures discussed here resonate with the entire world since freedom and love are universal concepts.
Works Cited
Oldenburg, Claus and Nadja Rottner. Claes Oldenburg. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. Print.
Ryan, Susan Elizabeth, and Robert Indiana. Robert Indiana: Figures of Speech. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000. Print.
Shanes, Eric. Pop Art. New York, NY: Parkstone, 2009. Print.
