A Badminton Game at Monumental Scale
On the lawn outside Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, four enormous shuttlecocks appear to have landed in the middle of an unfinished game. Each stands about 18 feet tall. Their scattered positions make the museum grounds feel less like a formal approach to a cultural institution and more like a playing field caught between volleys.
Turning a Familiar Object Into a Sculpture
Artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen created the works, titled Shuttlecocks, and they were installed in 1994. The pair often enlarged ordinary objects until their scale changed how people saw them. A shuttlecock is light enough to flick across a badminton court; made huge, it becomes a striking presence against the museum’s architecture and open grass.
The sculptures keep the object’s recognizable shape—the rounded cork-like end and spread feathers—but exaggerate it so dramatically that viewers have to switch between two readings: this is a familiar piece of sports equipment, and it is a monumental work of art.
A Museum Lawn That Invites Play
The placement is part of the effect. Rather than lining the shuttlecocks up like a display, the artists set them at varied angles and distances, suggesting movement without showing the game itself. That playful interruption also softens the formality of the museum setting: visitors can encounter the art outdoors, from different directions, and at the scale of the surrounding landscape.
The joke depends on a real contrast. A shuttlecock is designed to fly briefly and come down; these look as if they have just dropped onto the lawn, only to remain there as part of Kansas City’s museum grounds.
