Claes Oldenburg: Early Work

Much of the seminal 1960s sculpture documented in this catalogue is from Claes Oldenburg's personal collection and had never been shown until it was gathered on the occasion of the artist's first major historical New York exhibition since his Guggenheim retrospective of 1995. Included are a large selection of objects from The Store; early soft sculptures from The Home; and works related to the Airflow project. Scholars and new initiates alike will enjoy Oldenburg's earliest riffs on street life (yard-long gym shoes), household objects (plump fabric light switches and toilets) and automobile culture, explored and transformed through innovative manipulations of scale and material into mysterious, formally inventive works that address human experience in modern life. An insightful essay by Julia E. Robinson points to relationships with the work of Daumier, Dubuffet and Manet.