Fire Plug Souvenir - "Chicago August 1968"

Claes Oldenburg's Statement on Fire Plug Souvenir (Claes Oldenburg: The Multiples Store, 1996, p. 30):

'In October 1968, the Richard Feigen Gallery in Chicago organized an exhibition to protest Mayor Richard J. Daley's brutal response to demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention the previous August. I was asked to make a multiple object that could be sold to benefit the cases of those arrested. I wanted to make a sort of souvenir of the August events, the kind that is sold at airports or that one takes home from a carnival or a world's fair and that is normally made out of painted plaster.

The subject in this case would not be a Hancock Tower, but a humble subject that is a fixture in every neighborhood, a true multiple of the city – one of Chicago's characteristic, chunky, red, two-headed fireplugs. The scale I chose was that of a cobblestone, something I associated with revolutionary activity, though the plan to throw one plug through the window to launch the exhibition was never realized. As I made the Fire Plug Souvenir – "Chicago August 1968," it began to look somewhat like a teddy bear, and, like a stuffed animal, it could be set down in different ways. For the opening of the Feigen exhibition fifty of the plugs were arranged in different positions like an unruly crowd, and roses, which seemed a related shape, were scattered over them.'

Cast plaster with red acrylic paint, 1968, signed in felt-tip pen, incised 'C.O.' and 'Chicago August 1968' on the base, numbered from the edition of 100, published by the Richard Feigen Gallery, Chicago, overall: 203 x 203 x 152 mm. (8 x 8 x 6 in.)

Multiples Store 10; Multiples in Retrospect 10