London Knees 1966

Claes Oldenburg's Statement on London Knees 1966 (Claes Oldenburg: The Multiples Store, 1996, pp. 24-27):

'The first colossal monument proposals were executed in 1965 for New York City. In 1966 the approach was extended to two European cities, Stockholm and London. Objects from contemporary life that seemed to sum up and concentrate the ingredients of a specific time and place were enlarged and inserted into a site in the city, sometimes as a replacement for an existing monument, as in the case of the Lipstick for Piccadilly Circus, which was to take the place of the sculpture of Eros. Lipstick actually referred more to the period of the Second World War, kept alive in Britain through nostalgia, than to the situation in 1966, when lip makeup was temporarily subdued.

London Knees 1966, on the other hand, was a very contemporary phenomenon, due to the recent invention of the miniskirt. It is difficult now to imagine how revolutionary this paradoxical combination of masculine voyeurism and feminine liberation seemed in its time. However, knees would not have qualified as the subject of a colossal monument without links to other formal themes observed in London's surroundings, such as turrets and columns in the city's architecture or the ubiquitous posters of a government anti-smoking campaign showing heaps of butts, or "fagends." The architectural and fetishistic functions of knees were accentuated by the fashion of wearing boots with the mini, which created a sharply demarcated area of the body suitable for objectification.

On my first visit to London in July 1966, Paul Cornwall-Jones proposed doing an edition with Editions Alecto Limited, and in October Alecto provided me with a studio for experiments. Knees was preceded, however, by plans for a boxed set of oversized British biscuits in plaster (a carryover from the Knäckebröd) and a selection of British light switches formed in plaster and cast in resin that could be attached magnetically to rectangles of representative British wallpaper. Of these, only studies survive.

Knees are very difficult to represent convincingly, and "typical" knees are impossible to define. I tried a photographic survey conducted by students at the London College of Printing with the assistance of Eric Ayers, who in the end located the best knees in his own family, photographing his wife and daughter. I first considered using three-dimensional photography leading to carvings of the knees selected, but then realized that since my "rules" required the use of a stereotype, a better source would be a mannequin such as those that lined Oxford Street, where so many of the actual knees could be observed in motion. I reasoned that any mannequin, like a toy, would embody a consensus of desirable knees, but I discovered that styles in mannequins change. The style then was a "romantic" look, with little naturalistic detail. On a tip, I went to a warehouse full of mannequins from the Second World War years and there found a mannequin with knees that were true to life and in a stance I liked. I bought it and had it delivered to Alecto. After sawing off the knees and setting them up, I realized that one was too relaxed. The solution was to have a mirror image carved of the more rigid knee. Together, the two versions of the same knee looked architectural, though slightly knock-kneed.

The Knees were produced by a manufacturer of mannequins who told me that the material could be varied in hardness and could be made a resilient as flesh. A mixture of resin and marble powder was created that had a firm appearance, holding all detail, and yet could be squeezed, a potential of the multiple that is prevented by the usual display of London Knees 1966 in a case. Perhaps this was just as well, because over the years the London Knees 1966 have lost much of their resilience.

As to color, one direction favored the colors of daylight playing on the colossal versions at different times of the day; another involved contrasting a hot red and cold blue knee. I finally decided on the ivory color of the Elgin Marbles, which seemed a very Londonish hue. The private, fetishistic character that the disconnected London Knees 1966 possess was accentuated by discreet felt coverings like those used for silverware, and a plain box container carrying overtones of a magician sawing his assistant in half. A black Plexiglas platform provided so that the London Knees 1966 could change scale and be shown as the model of a colossal monument. In addition, an assortment of documents was provided to show the origins and extensions of the project in the artist's imagination, together with sources and facts of production – an elaborate package that took two years to complete.

The fact that a multiple, like a book, goes out into the world to many persons seems to suit my compulsion to explain my intentions and investigate the motives of the so-called art process.'

Two cast latex 'knees' coated with coloured polyurethane, two sewn felt bags, 13 offset lithographs in three cloth-covered paper-board folders, cloth-covered traveling case, 1968, initialled on base of each knee, signed and numbered in pencil on envelope, from the edition 120 (there are also 10 artist's proofs), published by Editions Alecto Ltd, London, in association with Neuendorf Verlag, Berlin, overall (case closed): 190 x 432 x 295 mm (7½ x 17 x 11 ½ in.)

Multiples Store 8; Multiples in Retrospect 8; Axsom and Platzker 51