Erasing the past

/ Alex Good

“Typewriter Eraser, Scale X” by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen (1999).

I was watching a documentary last week on modern art and at one point the discussion turned to pop art and the sculpture of Claes Oldenburg. I was familiar with a few of Oldenburg’s works, but I hadn’t seen the one they splashed on the screen: Typewriter Eraser, Scale X.

What really took me aback though was that without the title I wouldn’t have even known what this was a (giant-sized) sculpture of. Something about it triggered a very vague memory. I’m sure I’d seen erasers like this somewhere before, but I couldn’t tell you where or when. And I learned to type on a classic Underwood that was as heavy as an engine block, complete with a long silver arm that you swatted back for carriage return. But I never used a typewriter eraser. I think there are few people alive who have, and fewer every day. And yet this was a 1999 sculpture (albeit one Oldenburg had apparently been thinking about doing since the 1960s).

The reason this struck me as meaningful is that Oldenburg’s sculpture, like a lot of pop art, was based on representations of instantly recognizable, everyday objects. He made giant clothespins and giant cheeseburgers. So what happens to pop art when the objects it represents have become so alien? I mean, a giant typewriter eraser might even be an alien, with the spindly brush a shock of blue hair coming out of a round pink cyclopean head. Less imaginatively, it’s a wheeled pizza cutter with a handle that’s come apart.

It seems like an interesting question for art appreciation. If the point is to have you recognize an object that is immediately identifiable even when it’s presented on a different scale and in a different setting, but you don’t know what the object is supposed to be in the first place, then the whole effect of the piece has changed. It hasn’t been lost, mind you. Just changed. I think there’s an analogy that can be made to how we respond to current events when we’ve lost so much historical understanding and perspective. Events lose their meaning, or their meaning changes, when they no longer have any generally understood context. The giant eraser becomes a metaphor.

14 thoughts on “Erasing the past”

    • It was such a weird experience seeing the sculpture. I recognized it as something I’d seen before, but couldn’t place it or remember what it was. Then the title of the sculpture didn’t actually help because I’d never used one or seen one used. I must have just come across one lying around on a desk or in a drawer somewhere. Such things existed once! But I imagine they must be long gone now. Can’t believe anyone still makes them.

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  4. What has this got to do with the children’s literature of Diana Wynn’s Jones?

    Love typewriters, can’t bear to throw them out, first experience of hunt and peck. Never used an eraser, wouldn’t know what this was, but wasn’t that the point?

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