Happenings: Easy on the Onion

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What is seven feet wide, made out of painted sailcloth, and looks like a giant hamburger with a detachable pickle perched on top? The pop-art answer is a well-done Giant Hamburger by Claes Oldenburg. When the Art Gallery of Toronto recently bought one for some $4,000, students at Toronto's Central Technical High School looked at it with a hungry eye. What a hamburger needs, they reasoned, is ketchup. Someone sent out for a bottle of Heinz; in less time than it takes to shake a slurp out of the bottle, students and teachers had built a 9-ft.-tall, 50-lb. exact-scale blowup, painted bright red and labeled "Made from fresh overripe tomatoes."

As an ecstatic Heinz man cheered them on, the students proudly deposited the bottle on the gallery steps. Alas, gallery officials were not amused. Sniffed Curator Brydon Smith: "The Hamburger is a serious work of art, done by an important New York artist. This other thing is a happening." Added Director William Withrow: "The Hamburger makes an extremely important statement about our society." Back to Central Technical High went the bottle (now peeling slightly). Still, the ketchup incident has happily helped to ease the city's solemn view of "art." Dozens of Torontonians visiting the gallery now ask with relish: "Where can I see the Hamburger!"—and guffaw.