Martin Friedman
Director Emeritus, Wakter Art Center

"People feel freer to comment, freer to criticize, freer to like or dislike and I find it quite thrilling to work in an outdoor setting like that."
-- Martin Friedman

On their work and public perceptions...
"The advent of an Oldenburg/van Bruggen large scale outdoor project generates quite a flurry. Before it even happens the press gets into the act. Letters to the editor, telephone calls, how could you do this to our sacred space. And as the work begins to take form and people begin to look at it, they are delighted and amused. They're ... well a few of them reserve their antipathies."

"They don't look like what monumental sculptures are suppose to look like. These aren't guys on horses. These aren't victorious angels. These aren't dignified depictions of national heroes and so forth. They are, in a sense, anti-sculpture. And they have the audacity to, I am speaking of Claes and Coosje, have the audacity to take ordinary objects and ennoble them, not just in scale but in the public placement of these objects."

"This is disturbing to people who have a mind set of what art should be and especially what public art should be. So in affect they also have changed our perception of what public art could be and should be by saying that we are taking objects from our daily environment, things that we all know so well, things that are ubiquitous, and we are transforming them."

"Once they have gotten over the shock, I would say the majority, the overwhelming majority claim them, adopt them, take their friends to see them, and you know they like the idea of these images appearing on the covers of their telephone books. They become symbols of the city or the town."