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A term used to describe sculpture made of non-rigid materials such as cloth, rubber, canvas, leather, or paper, it gained particular currency in the 1960s and 1970s. The best-known exponent was Claes Oldenburg whose giant sculptures of foodstuffs—such as ice-cream sundaes, hamburgers, or slices of cake—were made from stuffed vinyl and canvas. Possibly the earliest example of Soft art had been Marcel Duchamp's typewriter cover exhibited on a stand of 1916.

Text source: The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Art Terms (2nd Edition) by Michael Clarke


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