Claes Oldenburg: The Sixties
10.30.2012 - 02.17.2013
With his humorous and profound depictions of everyday objects, Claes Oldenburg is one of the most important and popular artists since the late 1950s. Not only has he been a major figure in performance art, installation art and pop art, but he has also, through his partnership with Coosje van Bruggen, had a profound influence on public art with their monumental large-scale projects. One central point of reference in Oldenburg’s oeuvre is the industrially produced object—the object as commodity, which in continuous metamorphoses of media and form becomes a conveyer of culture and a symbol of the imagination, desires, and obsessions of the capitalist world.
The exhibition is the largest show realized of Oldenburg’s path-breaking and emblematic early work from the 1960s. Numerous icons of contemporary art will be seen in the exhibition, beginning with the installation The Street (1960) and its graffiti-inspired depictions of modern life in the big city, continuing to the famous consumer articles of The Store (1961-62), to the spectacular everyday objects of the "modern home". The exhibition is also dedicated to Oldenburg’s first designs depicting enormous monuments of consumer objects intended for public spaces and concludes with the Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien’s Mouse Museum, a walk-in, miniature museum in the form of a geometric mouse, for which Oldenburg has collected 385 objects since the late 1950s.
The exhibition is co-organized by Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Vienna (MUMOK) and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
Curated by: Achim Hodchdörfer, Curator of the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (mumok)
Claes Oldenburg
Pastry Case I, 1961–62
Painted plaster sculptures on ceramic plates, metal platter and cups in glass-and-metal case
52.7 x 76.5 x 37.3 cm
Courtesy MoMA, New York/The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection
The Exhibition
Claes Oldenburg
Mug, 1960
Cardboard and wood, painted with casein and spray enamel
193 x 127 cm
Courtesy Museum Ludwig,
Cologne © Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Big White Shirt with Blue Tie, 1961
Muslin soaked in plaster over wire frame, painted with enamel
119 x 78 x 34 cm
Courtesy Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, Ludwig Donation 1976
© Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Pastry Case I, 1961–62
Painted plaster sculptures on ceramic plates, metal platter and cups in glass-and-metal case
52.7 x 76.5 x 37.3 cm
Courtesy MoMa, New York / The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection, 1967
© Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Floor Cake, 1962
Canvas filled with foam rubber and cardboard boxes, painted with synthetic
1.48 x 2.9 x 1.48 m
Courtesy MoMa, New York; gift of Philip Johnson, 1975
© Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Two Cheeseburgers, with Everything (Dual Hamburgers), 1962
Burlap soaked in plaster, painted with enamel
17.8 x 37.5 x 21.8 cm
Courtesy MoMa, New York
© Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Shoestring Potatoes Spilling from a Bag, 1966
Canvas filled with kapok, stiffened with glue and painted with acrylic
274.3 x 132.1 x 101.6 cm
Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Gift of the T. B. Walker Foundation, 1966
© Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Proposed Colossal Monument for Central Park North, N.Y.C. – Teddy Bear, 1965
Wax crayon and watercolor on paper
60.6 x 47.9 cm
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Gift of the American Contemporary Art Foundation, Inc., Leonard A. Lauder, President
© Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Mouse Museum, 1977
Installation
263 x 950 x 1020 cm
mumok museum moderner kunst stiftung ludwig wien
© Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Mouse Museum, 1977
Installation/detail
263 x 950 x 1020 cm
mumok museum moderner kunst stiftung ludwig wien
© Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Ray Gun Wing, 1969–77
Installation/detail
Wood and corrugated aluminum and plexiglas display cases with 258 objects
263 x 450 x 565 cm
mumok museum moderner kunst stiftung ludwig wien; On loan from the Austrian Ludwig Foundation, since 1981
© Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Soft Pay-Telephone, 1963
Vinyl filled with kapok, mounted on painted wood panel
118.2 x 48.3 x 22.8 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift Ruth and Philip Zierler in memory of their departed son, William S. Zierler, 1980
Artist
Oldenburg, Claes
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