Brimming with absurdity, Oldenburg’s Double‑nose / purse / punching bag / ashtray 1970 consists of a wooden box that opens to reveal a punching bag nesting in a pile of woodchips, sprinkled with what appears at first glance to be pirate currency. A zipper serves to transform the punching bag into a purse, which opens to reveal a bronze cast of conjoined noses. The inside of the box’s lid is printed with an idyllic view glimpsed through a horseshoe arch surrounded by harvest grains and hops. The punching bag was specially fabricated based on a model created by the artist, the top gathered into the base of a bronze ashtray full of stubbed-out cigarettes. There is a lock design burned on the outside of the box where a keyhole might usually appear, and at the base of the horseshoe; on close inspection the oddly-bulging lock is reminiscent of a nose.

Oldenburg’s sketchbooks often contain drawings and notes that make connections between seemingly unconnected objects, such as ‘skyscraper-scissors’, or a slice of pie that morphs into a typewriter.^[i] The box contains a tiny, deerskin-bound book that promises to unlock the mystery of this three-dimensional riddle, offering a peek into the workings of the artist’s mind. It reveals that he envisaged gigantic noses as the entrances to freeway tunnels in the manner of the Proposed monuments, and weaves a string of anecdotes and reminiscences together to form an explanation of sorts for the work. Envisaged as a woman’s purse containing a heavy cast nose that serves as both an amulet and a weapon against muggers, it also recalls La Bonne Aventure 1937 and other paintings by Rene Magritte featuring disembodied noses.^[ii] A driving force in the completion of the work was its association with the humble ice bag, the cap of which has morphed into the brimming ashtray.

Bronwyn Campbell, Brooke Babington and Emilie Owens

^[i] Discussed in Julian Rose’s ‘Objects in the cluttered field: Claes Oldenburg’s Proposed Monuments’, in October, Spring 2012, pp 113–38.

^[ii] Collection unknown, sold at Sotheby’s, London, 2013, at artnet.com, accessed 5 April 2018.