Sneaker Lace in Landscape - Gray

Published by Gemini GEL, Los Angeles, this color lithograph is part of a group of seven prints that Oldenburg produced as part of his “Sneaker Lace” series of 1991. The series features portions of a gym shoe and interwoven shoelace that extends vertically to suggest the form of a palm tree swaying in the wind. The subject reprises a theme that first appeared in Oldenburg’s work in the late 1960s. Serving as studies for an oversize sculpture, these prints show Oldenburg’s ideas of how his still life sculpture would appear in a landscape. Like many of his recurring themes, the subject reflects Oldenburg’s longstanding interest in seeing his favorite objects set into open exterior spaces, thus merging the scale of still life with that of landscape.