Reported by Gene Bunge, NETV Program Manager
Sculptors Claes Oldenberg and Coosje van Bruggen visited Lincoln on September 6, 1996, for the dedication of their new work, "Torn Notebook," a piece created in steel and aluminum and commissioned by the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery. The sculpture is inspired by Oldenberg's lifelong process of developing ideas in small notebooks that he carries with him everywhere. After a few months, Oldenberg goes through the notebook, tears out those pages that he wants to keep and develop further, and then tears the notebook itself in half. This is an integral part of the art process for Oldenberg and van Bruggen.
As the sculpture was being developed, Oldenberg and van Bruggen visited Lincoln several times and took their own notes about their impressions. Those notes were then selected by the artists and reproduced on the final pages of the sculpture, sometimes in Claes' handwriting, sometimes in Coosje's. Because the handwriting is cut through the pages, light at different times of the day change the way the sculpture looks. And under artificial light at night, walking around the piece is a totally new experience.
Perhaps more than any other contemporary artists, the Oldenbergs have redefined our notion of public art. They have taken familiar objects and transformed them into monumental sculptures, sculptures which sometimes generate controversy but which the public frequently come to enjoy and embrace.
"Torn Notebook" is derived from the image of a spiral notebook ripped in half, its pages scattered by the wind is placed in a park between the university and downtown Lincoln. The sculpture was created to accommodate a multiplicity of interpretations.
[Oldenberg:] "A feeling of liberty, a feeling of freedom, a feeling of it doesn't matter, let's try, but knowledge is good to get."
[Oldenberg:] "It also suggests a harmony with nature, because it's a sculpture that interacts with nature by suggestion in showing the effect of the wind and also by actual fact because of the way the sun penetrates the writing and casts different shadows so that it's integrated with the surroundings in a very strong way."
[Coosje van Bruggen:] "It's not a bird that took off in a moment of beautiful flight, it's not the supreme moment, it's not the sublime, it's more fluttering, it's more in between, it's more this attempt to trying to get there but nobody knows where it will end, and so because of it, it seems to be more humane, and that's what I want to give to people, a humane sign in a mostly inhumane urban landscape."