Inverted Collar and Tie
Encyclopedia
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
and Coosje van Bruggen
Coosje van Bruggen
Coosje van Bruggen was a sculptor, art historian, and critic. She collaborated extensively with her husband, Claes Oldenburg.-Biography:...
. It is located in Frankfurt's Westend
Westend (Frankfurt am Main)
The Westend area of Frankfurt contains the two districts of Westend-Nord and Westend-Süd. The Westend with its Wilhelminian style buildings is a beloved residential quarter...
in front of the Westendstraße 1
Westendstraße 1
Westendstraße 1 is a well-known skyscraper in the Westend of Frankfurt. It was completed in 1993 and together with the City Haus, the headquarters of DZ Bank...
. The DG Bank
DZ Bank
DZ Bank AG is an acronym for Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftbank . DZ Bank is the fourth largest bank in Germany by asset size and the central institution for more than 900 co-operative banks and their 12,000 branch offices...
ordered the artwork in 1993. It was made in California.
Inverted Collar and Tie shows a huge collar
Collar (clothing)
In clothing, a collar is the part of a shirt, dress, coat or blouse that fastens around or frames the neck. Among clothing construction professionals, a collar is differentiated from other necklines such as revers and lapels, by being made from a separate piece of fabric, rather than a folded or...
of a shirt and a necktie
Necktie
A necktie is a long piece of cloth worn for decorative purposes around the neck or shoulders, resting under the shirt collar and knotted at the throat. Variants include the ascot tie, bow tie, bolo tie, and the clip-on tie. The modern necktie, ascot, and bow tie are descended from the cravat. Neck...
that are mounted top down on a pedestal. The necktie spreads its ends upwards as if it is fluttering lightly in the wind. The pedestal is painted in dark grey, the necktie is coloured in light grey with dark stripes. The artwork's measures are 11.9 to 8.5 to 3.9 meters, its weight is 7.5 metric tons. The sculpture is made from polymer concrete
Polymer concrete
Polymer concrete is part of group of concretes that use polymers to supplement or replace cement as a binder. The types include polymer-impregnated concrete, polymer concrete, and polymer-Portland-cement concrete...
, steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
and glass-reinforced plastic
Glass-reinforced plastic
Fiberglass , is a fiber reinforced polymer made of a plastic matrix reinforced by fine fibers of glass. It is also known as GFK ....
The artwork is an ironic allusion to the business people wearing "collar and tie" who work in the DZ's office tower and in the Frankfurt banking district around.