Lansing's Brush With Art History - 50 Years Ago

When artist sculptor Claes Oldenburg, 93, died in 2022, I was reminded of the brush Lansing had with the famed pop international artist 50 years ago. 

In 1972 the final touches were being designed for the Washington Mall in downtown Lansing that would feature the circular roundabout intersection of Washington and Michigan Ave directly in front of the Capitol. It was decided that a sculptor would be commissioned to create a dynamic work to adorn the centerpiece of the intersection. 

A sculpture committee was assembled by the Lansing Fine Arts Council to choose an artist. At the time, Oldenburg was a highly regarded sculptor but had not yet received the international acclaim he received later in life. 

The artist’s trademark style also caused a furor in many communities. He designed huge sculptures of everyday objects.  One of his best known works is called “Clothespin”, which is a meticulously accurate 45-foot version of a wooden clothespin, that now stands in the city center of Philadelphia. One of my favorites is a massive representation of a round-wheel typewriter eraser which is in the National Gallery of Art’s Sculpture Garden in Washington DC.

When he was commissioned to produce a work for the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, the artist looked at the expansive lawn of the art museum and the long, single-story building standing in the middle of the grounds.  To him, the artist saw a giant badminton court visioning the low-slung building as the net.  He then designed stunningly oversized shuttlecocks that lay on the lawn on either side of the long building of the museum. 

When the shuttlecocks were dedicated, the Kansas City Star derided them and the family that sponsored their purchase.  Slowly, however, the whimsical sculptures have become beloved by the city and pictures of them are all over town, becoming an iconic symbol for Kansas City. 

Dolores Wharton, wife of Michigan State University’s then President Clifton Wharton, sat on Lansing’s sculpture committee. 

When Oldenburg, known as an iconoclast, visited the city in 1972 the State Journal asked him if he really cared what people thought of his works. He said, “Yes, I care.  I can’t force anything on the community it doesn’t want. I want to make an impact that is meaningful but not everyone is going to see it the same way. Reactions will be different.”

They sure were different.  Oldenburg, 42 at the time, presented the committee with sketches of an ashtray and a saw, a popsicle and a catcher’s mitt with a ball in it. 

The community was clearly lukewarm about these proposals. Oldenburg was considered to be an avant-garde artist, and Lansing was not an avant-garde town in 1972.

As the weeks went on, Oldenburg himself cooled on the baseball mitt idea. He was having trouble finding ways of fabricating the 20-foot steel structure with a wooden ball in the middle.  He was later quoted as saying “I couldn’t get fired up to create the baseball glove.”   

Jim Hough, who wrote the popular “Onlooker” column for the State Journal for many years, said “A giant sculpture of a baseball catcher’s mitt in downtown Lansing? You’ve got be to kidding!”

The negative opinion of the mitt idea is a bit confusing, since many refer to the shape of Michigan to be similar to that of a glove or mitten and Lansing has been referred to as the “middle of the mitten”.

The Journal seemed to be solidly against the sculpture, in one article labeling Oldenburg as an anti-establishment (a term very popular in the Vietnam era) artist. 

Dolores Wharton however supported Oldenburg, as quoted in the State Journal, “We thought this was a significant representation of Lansing and a handsome piece”.

In February 1973, Oldenburg, amid all the negative publicity, withdrew his name from the project and cited problems with constructing the two finalists (the popsicle being the other one) as the reason. He also was surprised at the community’s reaction to the ideas presented.  

But after Oldenburg released himself from his Lansing engagement, he in fact created the baseball mitt sculpture, and in October of 1973 the 12-foot high “Standing Mitt with Ball” was delivered to art collector Mr. and Mrs. Albrecht Saalfield in Connecticut. It eventually became a very respected example of Oldenburg’s works.

In 2017 it was acquired by the prestigious Cleveland Museum of Art and now sits in a prime location in its courtyard. No one in the museum knows about the Lansing connection.

The work of art that was finally commissioned for the Washington Mall was called “Construction #150” by Jose De Rivera. It is a bland, small shiny, stainless-steel, spiral shape that was motorized and turned around on the top of its mounting.  It is so innocuous that several years ago the city removed it when its motor broke , and no one even noticed its disappearance. 

If the mitt and ball would have been celebrated by the city and placed in the mall, who knows what would have happened?  As with other Oldenburg pieces, it could have been an artistic conversation piece throughout Michigan and may have been the pride of Lansing, appearing on the cover of many Michigan tourist books.

No doubt, this is not the first time a much appreciated work of art was passed on by its original commissioner because it was thought to be too “out there” for the time.