This is a really early example of Oldenburg’s work. Claes moved to New York full-time in 1956. He had his first show in 1959 at Jackson Gallery, which displayed a range of works from drawings, collages, and early soft sculptures. The present work, Spectators, is one of his early explorations into collage as a method and medium. It’s inspired by the imagery and materials of his day-to-day life in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. This work is considered to be part of his “Street” period (1959-1960), where the writing and lettering of the NY streets was mirrored in his use of collage materials. Similarly, the seemingly incomplete forms mimic the transient nature of the city street. Gradually, Oldenburg would later go on to be associated with the wider Pop Art movement with his large-scale, monumental sculptures of quotidian objects.