So yesterday I posted the first view I had of the giant red rubber stampin Willard Park, Cleveland.
Walking around to the other side, the stamp reads, ‘FREE', which is intriguing, because it couldn't possibly have been free. It must have cost something.
The ‘Free Stamp' was created by Claes Oldenburg and his wife Coosje van Bruggen and was commissioned in 1985 by Standard Oil of Ohio. It was going to be placed upright with the letters hidden from view on a stamp pad and be displayed in front of their new offices on Public Square.
However, by the time the sculpture was completed, BP had acquired Sohio and the new BP execs thought the stamp was intended to mock BP so they refused to install it.
After wrangling with the artists and the city, the stamp was modified to lay on its side and BP donated it to the city and had it installed next to city Hall in Willard Park, a few blocks from it's intended site in Public Square.
So I guess the citizens of Cleveland did get the sculpture for ‘free'. Now they just have to bear the cost of maintaining it!
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Production Data
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Processing: Lightroom 4.0
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