Flying Pins

With ‘Flying Pins’, a bowling ball that throws a ‘strike’. Claes Oldenburg (1929) and his wife Coosje van Bruggen (1942) realized the eye-catcher that the municipality of Eindhoven wished for just before the millenium. The work is 8,5 meters tall at its highest point and has a dynamic look to it because of the cones that seem to whiz through the air. The yellow color of the cones was chosen by Van Bruggen and refers to the thousands of yellow daffodils that brighten up the Kennedylaan every spring. The head of the Kennedylaan was the perfect place for the artists to realize the previously designed image, because the long road reminded them of a bowling alley.

‘Flying Pins’ is the first work of art in Dutch public space by the American/Dutch artist duo, known worldwide for their designs of gigantic utensils. Museum sculptures can be found in the gardens of the Kroller-Müller Museum and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. ‘Flying Pins’ is on of their most exciting images. Here, not only an everyday object has been enlarged or distorted, but a composition has also been designed that captures the frozen moment of an action on a monumental scale. The passing spectator cannot miss the euphoric feeling that throwing a ‘strike’ causes.