Coosje van Bruggen

Who was Coosje van Bruggen?

(Koh-sha vahn Broo-gun)

Born in Groningen, the Netherlands, on June 6, 1942, Coosje van Bruggen

received a master's degree in art history from the University of

Groningen. From 1967 to 1971 she worked in the curatorial department of

the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and was co-editor of the catalogue of

Sonsbeek 71, an exhibition of contemporary sculpture held in Park

Sonsbeek, Arnhem, and other sites throughout the Netherlands. Van

Bruggen was a member of the selection committee for Documenta 7 in

Kassel, Germany (1982); a contributor to Artforum (1983-88); and Senior

Critic in the Department of Sculpture at Yale University School of Art

(1996-97). She has also authored books on Claes Oldenburg's early work

and on John Baldessari, Hanne Darboven, Bruce Nauman, and the architect

Frank O. Gehry, among others. Van Bruggen's first collaboration withClaes Oldenburg was in 1976, when Trowel I, originally shown at

Sonsbeek 71, was rebuilt and relocated in the sculpture garden of the

Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands. In 1978 van Bruggen

moved to New York, where she continued to work withOldenburg to

establish direct contact with a wider audience by creating large-scale,

site-specific works in urban settings. Their collaboration has extended

to smaller-scale park and garden sculptures as well as to indoor

installations.