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Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar TracksLipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks © Used by Permission of the Artist

Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks

Claes Oldenburg. 1969–1974 C.E. Cor-Ten steel, steel, aluminum, and cast resin; painted with polyurethane enamel.

Curator Note

"A massive Pop Art sculpture installed at Yale University during the Vietnam War protests. Oldenburg combined a feminine consumer object (lipstick) with a masculine military machine (tank tracks). The phallic lipstick balloon inflated and deflated, satirizing the military-industrial complex and the "make love, not war" generation."

Form

  • Pop Art: monumental scale of everyday object.
  • Juxtaposition of soft/hard, male/female forms.
  • Vertical lipstick (phallic) on horizontal tracks.
  • Original tip was inflatable vinyl (now steel).
  • Bright orange vs dark steel.

Function

  • To serve as a platform for student protests (speakers' podium).
  • To satirize the Vietnam War.
  • To critique the university's complicity in war.
  • To eroticize violence (or mock it).
  • To bring art out of the museum.

Content

  • Lipstick: beauty, femininity, consumerism.
  • Caterpillar Tracks: tank, war, masculinity.
  • Ascending: missile launch / phallic erection.
  • Combined: The connection between consumerism and war.
  • Absurd/Humorous tone.

Context

  • Commissioned by architecture students at Yale.
  • 1969: Peak of anti-war movement.
  • Oldenburg known for "soft sculptures" of food.
  • Initially rejected by Yale, later accepted.
  • Public art as political activism.