Like commemorative representations or monuments, Claes Oldenburg’s sculptures and drawings for “The European Desk Top” are designed to reveal the significance of their surrounding world as well as their underlying allegorical structures. Olden-burg’s works function like agglutinations of signifiers for the historical, political, and economic meaning, as well as the use value of the place they have been designed to mark: here, a European gallery.

The four painted, expanded polystyrene sculptures Oldenburg presents, entitled Sculpture in the Form of a Writing Quill and an Exploding Ink Bottle, on