The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art as a Net, with Shuttlecocks

The husband and wife team of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen were commissioned in 1992 to design a site-specific sculpture for The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. They responded to the formality of the Museum’s 1933 neoclassical building and the green expanse of its lawn by imagining the limestone building as a sagging badminton net and the lawn as a playing field. While many badminton birdies (Shuttlecocks) are in play in this preparatory concept drawing, the final sculpture features four—three on the South lawn and one on the North.