The story of Knife Slicing Through Wall began in 1966, when Oldenburg created a drawing of a colossal knife cutting through the façade of the Swan & Edgar department store at London’s Piccadilly Circus. The drawing explored the enlargement of everyday objects and their relationship to urban architecture, presenting a humorous and subversive commentary on consumer culture. The idea remained unrealized until it was revisited two decades later.
In 1985, the concept resurfaced in Venice, Italy, when curator Germano Celant invited Oldenburg and van Bruggen to create a site-specific project for the city’s Arsenale. Collaborating with architect Frank Gehry, the artists designed sets and sculptural props for Il Corso del Coltello (The Course of the Knife), a three-day performance. Oldenburg appeared as “Dr. Coltello,” a knife vendor and inventor, while oversized knives and utensils animated the theatrical climax — including a giant knife staged to appear as though it were slicing through a Venetian window. This Venice “knife slicing” was performative and temporary, realized only within the context of the event. (From the same collaboration emerged Knife Ship, a floating, Swiss-Army-knife-shaped vessel that embodied the performance’s spirit of transformation: a tool that could also be a boat, an object that could also be a stage.)
When Margo Leavin exhibited works from Il Corso del Coltello at her West Hollywood gallery in 1988, the knife motif took on a new, architectural dimension. The artists’ vision was fully realized in 1989 as Knife Slicing Through Wall, a monumental stainless-steel sculpture appearing to pierce the gallery’s stucco façade. The work quickly became a Los Angeles landmark. After the Margo Leavin Gallery closed in 2013, the sculpture remained in place, gradually obscured by vegetation — still embedded, still performing its silent cut. Now reinstalled, Knife Slicing Through Wall continues the long arc of Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s incisive imagination.
This exhibition is organized in collaboration with the private dealership Lindon & Co., and with appreciation to the Oldenburg/van Bruggen Estate, Maartje Oldenburg, Glenn Phillips, the Getty Research Institute, Paula Cooper Gallery, and Pace Gallery.
Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929–2022, Stockholm, Sweden) and Coosje van Bruggen (1942–2009, Groningen, Netherlands) were a collaborative duo whose work transformed everyday objects into monumental sculptures, blurring the boundaries between art, architecture, and urban experience. Oldenburg, a leading figure of the Pop Art movement, began his career in the early 1960s with soft sculptures and oversized versions of commonplace objects, exploring scale, humor, and consumer culture. Van Bruggen joined Oldenburg in 1976, and together they expanded his Pop sensibility into large-scale public and site-specific works that combined whimsy with formal rigor.
Maison d’Art LLC is a private advisory office specializing in historical art and the organization of thoughtfully curated exhibitions devoted to significant artists from Impressionism through the Post-War period.
CLAES OLDENBURG AND COOSJE VAN BRUGGEN: KNIFE SLICING THROUGH WALL
On view from November 4, 2025
By appointment only | Schedule a viewing
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