"One of his most famous installations, erected in 1976 — the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence — is 'Clothespin,' a 45-foot-high, 10-ton black steel sculpture..."

"... of precisely what the title indicates, complete with a metal spring that appropriately evokes the number 76. The work stands in stark contrast to conventional public sculpture, which Mr. Oldenburg, impersonating a municipal official, said was supposed to involve 'bulls and Greeks and lots of nekkid broads.'... 'My intention is to make an everyday object that eludes definition.... I’ve expressed myself consistently in objects with reference to human beings rather than through human beings,' he said....While Mr. Oldenburg’s work is most often linked to the Pop Art of the 1960s, he saw his monumental versions of humble objects as more than just celebrations of the mundane. 'A catalog could be made of all such objects... which would read like a list of the deities or things on which our contemporary mythological thinking has been projected. We do invest religious emotion in our objects. Look at how beautifully objects are depicted in ads in Sunday newspapers.'"

From "Claes Oldenburg Dies at 93; Pop Artist Made the Everyday Monumental/Taking ordinary objects like hamburgers and household items, he sculpted them in unfamiliar, often imposing dimensions — what he called his 'Colossal Monuments'" (NYT).

It's a beautiful idea — that common objects can be monumental. And what monumental devotion to this idea!

This gets my "big and small" tag, which is, perhaps, my favorite tag.