Electrifying Claes Oldenburg sculpture stuns on SLAM’s front lawn

Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A has become a defining feature of the Saint Louis Art Museum’s front yard in recent years.

Positioned in front of SLAM’s Main Building, this enormous electrical plug lies partially buried in the ground. It stands at almost five feet tall and weighs 3,500 pounds, comparable to the weight of a subcompact SUV. The body of the plug is made from Cor-Ten steel, a low-maintenance steel that can endure the characteristically erratic weather of the Midwest, and the prongs are made of gold-toned bronze. The work’s arching lines and recessed spaces complement the classical design of the Museum’s Main Building.

Sculpted by Claes Oldenburg (1929–2022), this work was installed on the north side of the Museum in 1971, shortly after the piece’s construction. It is the second edition of three electrical-plug sculptures, the first of which was commissioned by and installed at Oberlin College in Ohio. The third edition of the sculpture was created in 1973 for a private collector in Philadelphia, who displayed it in his home until 2010, when he donated it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. All three editions of the plug were fabricated at Lippincott, Inc., a sculpture fabrication company in New England.

During his long and fruitful career, Oldenburg became known for his monumental Pop Art sculptures of everyday consumer objects. Born in Sweden, the artist’s family moved to Chicago when he was seven. After attending Yale as a young adult, Oldenburg studied at the Art Institute of Chicago.

A 1959 show at the Judson Gallery in New York showcased several works by Oldenburg depicting everyday objects using a variety of media, including papier-mâché. In late 1961, Oldenburg “circumvented the practice of selling art through a gallery by opening a storefront on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and selling his work there,” according to The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). His unconventional creations included sculptures of undergarments and pastries made out of painted plaster. Oldenburg’s innovative blurring of the line between art and commodity became a milestone of Pop Art, according to MoMA.

His later career included large sculptures built with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen (1942–2009), a Dutch artist, curator, author, and art historian. The pair became artistic partners in 1976 when Oldenburg’s sculpture was exhibited at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands. The next year, the couple wed. Oldenburg and Van Bruggen built a life together in SoHo, New York, in which they collaborated on “drawings, installations, performances, and most prominently, over 40 site-specific public sculptures they called the ‘Large-Scale Projects,’ ” according to the Guggenheim.

The pair created myriad other larger-than-life sculptures of household items during their entwined careers, such as Flashlight at the University of Nevada; Torn Notebook at the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln; and Crusoe Umbrella in Des Moines, Iowa.