How did Claes Oldenburg create his soft sculptures?

Claes Oldenburg created his signature soft sculptures by crafting large-scale, often surreal enlargements of everyday objects, such as hamburgers, typewriters, and light switches.12

To construct these pieces, he utilized a variety of materials, most notably soft, yielding vinyl and canvas, which he stuffed with materials like kapok, paper, or rags to give the objects their characteristic drooping, pliable form. In addition to these primary components, his works incorporated a diverse range of materials including cloth, Dacron, metal, foam rubber, and Plexiglas.123

By choosing banal products of consumer life and rendering them in soft, non-rigid materials, Oldenburg imbued these familiar items with human and sometimes sexual overtones, challenging the traditional rigidity of sculpture. His approach evolved from his early work in "happenings"—experimental presentations involving objects and people—where he first began creating giant stuffed cloth objects for his installations.12