The Grown Boy & The Very Big 3-Way Plug

The Grown Boy & The Very Big 3-Way Plug

One would guess the boy was no more than twenty-nine years of age in this faded photograph. Barely more than a toddler, artistically, even though his work had already been hung on the wall of the Museum of Modern Art. Perhaps he was twenty-eight. No doubt he felt he was a man. He was still, even at that age, green, just an artist on the cusp. The prior day he had carefully planned and watched, alongside Claes, as the Three-Way Plug was repositioned by riggers. Carefully, they stood back, having an awareness that straps lifting heavy sculptures may snap causing untold angst.

IT HAD HAPPENED BEFORE.

All went as planned. No problems this time, unlike the Roman marble elephants.

He was just a kid making his way through the maze known as the Art World. He was about to leave the safe life of a museum paycheck in exchange for the uncertainty of the studio and the fickleness of the gallery network, well known as anything but a safety net. The Plug, he assumes, sits where he and Oldenburg left it at least forty-something years ago.

Bonus, since you have scrolled this far down:

A Fizzled Poem

From Claes Oldenburg I learned
to triage my artworks.
Claes would work on a piece.
Then, turn his back on it,
let it dry.
He would walk away,
put it out of his head.

Time would pass,
enough for him to
disconnect,
to judge his marks objectively.
This let him perform triage.

From the accumulated artworks
Claes sorted them
into two stacks and a pile.
One stack was made of
incomplete pieces,
displaying potential,
begging for his touch.
The other stack is for works
deemed successful and complete.

The pile was reserved for
the to-be-shredded failures,
pieces that had fizzled.
It was a very small pile.

Some things do not work out.
That is natural.