In New York, Pace begins its spring season with a presentation that celebrates the collaborative spirit that animated Claes Oldenburg and the late Coosje van Bruggen’s four decades of artistic and romantic partnership. Together, they created some of the best-known landmarks of urban and civic spaces across Europe and the U.S. Despite van Bruggen’s central role in realizing these works, however, she has yet to receive full credit for her contributions.
Curated in close collaboration with the artists’ daughter, Maartje Oldenburg, Claes Coosje: A Duet charts the evolution of one of the 20th century’s most influential artistic duos, culminating with the unveiling of the large-scale work, Dropped Bouquet—the final sculptural work that Oldenburg and van Bruggen conceived together before her death in 2009. In tandem with the exhibition, Pace will publish a catalog that reproduces a series of intimate, never-before-seen letters between Oldenburg and van Bruggen dating from the beginning of their partnership in the mid-1970s, as well as new scholarship on the artists’ work.