Claes Oldenburg | London Knees 1966

Claes Oldenburg

London Knees 1966

London, UK/Berlin, Germany: Editions Alecto/Neuendorf Verlag, 1968

19 x 43.2 x 29.5 cm.

Edition of 120 signed and numbered copies [+10 AP]

I’ve never particularly been a fan of the large scale public artworks that Claes Oldenburg is best known for (with a few notable exceptions), but hold many of his editioned works in high regard. And perhaps my favourite of them all is London Knees, which served double-duty as both an elaborate boxed multiple, and a proposal for a monumental public art work. 

Oldenburg first visited London in October of 1966, while preparing for a solo exhibition at the Robert Fraser Gallery. He became fascinated with the recent inventions of the miniskirt and go-go boots and imagined a pair of knees captured below the skirt and above the boots as a colossal monument.

The boxed work contains twenty-one prints that image the knees as colossal monuments situated around London, and a pair of flesh-like, life-size knees with a base, all contained in a traveling valise.

The knees were cast in flexible latex by Models (London) Ltd, coated in polyurethane by Hadfields Radiation Research Ltd, Surrey, and are contained in wool felt bags. The acrylic bases were made by J Watson (London) and Co Ltd, London and the boxes by F & J Randall Ltd, London. The papers have been printed by Lautrec Litho Ltd, Leeds and by Editions Alecto Ltd, London.

In addition to the ten artists proofs, there are believed to be three pairs of knees produced as "allowanced for mistakes”. At least one of these has made it to auction, without the box and accompanying material. The works were advertised with a folder contained nine photographic slides (see below). 

"Created as a proposal for a gigantic monument at the Victoria Embankment, London. 'London Knees' (1966), was a very contemporary phenomenon, due to the recent invention of the miniskirt. It is difficult now to imagine how revolutionary this paradoxical combination of masculine voyeurism and feminine liberation seemed in its time. However, 'Knees' would not have qualified as the subject of a colossal monument, without links to other formal themes observed in London's surroundings, such as turrets and columns in the city's architecture or the ubiquitous posters of a government anti-smoking campaign showing heaps of butts, or 'fagends'. The architectural and fetishistic functions of 'Knees' was accentuated by the fashion of wearing boots with the mini, which created a sharply demarcated area of the body suitable for objectification.” 

- Claes Oldenburg