Everything I do is completely original – I made it up when I was a little kid. CLAES OLDENBURG (Claes Oldenburg: Skulpturer och teckningar, exh. Cat. Stockholm: Moderna Museet, 1966, n.p.).
In 1956 Claes Oldenburg moved from Chicago to New York, marking the point at which he transitioned from painting and drawings to his self-described work “based on intuition.” By February of 1960 he began the series The Street, a body of work which was inspired by the debris collected on the streets of the city. The found objects—wrappers, plastic cups, cardboard, thrown-out food—became painted constructions, transforming the once discredited things into objects of downtown urban culture. Out of this series, Oldenburg developed an interest in extending art into a theatrical realm. “Pretending,” he explained, “is the natural equipment of the artist.” (Claes Oldenburg Notes, New York, June 1968). Inspired by Allan Kaprow’s elaborate 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, 1959, Oldenburg began to stage Happenings, in which the props and costumes consisted of readily available materials such as cardboard, newspaper, and other remnants left and discarded after a production. He sought to infuse the objects with an afterlife. It was from the props made for these performances that Oldenburg began the stuffed-fabric, soft sculptures, of which the present lot, Popsicle, Hamburger, Price, 1961-1962, is exemplary. Claes Oldenburg has emerged as the master of the quotidian, transforming the mundane into the extraordinary. Attracted by the cheap and common objects inundating the shelves of dime stores and shop windows, the present lot is comprised of a thick red Popsicle, a derelict hamburger, and a beat-up price tag of 10 cents. Using the merchandise and advertisements that surround the New York neighborhoods, Oldenburg explains, “I take the materials from the surroundings of the Lower East Side and transform them and give them back.” (Oldenburg, quoted in Claes Oldenburg painting Store works at the Ray Gun Mfg. Co., 107 East Second Street, New York, 1961. Photography by Robert R. McElroy, 1961. © Estate of Robert R. McElroy/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Artwork © 1961 Claes Oldenburg.
Paul Cummings, unpublished interview, December 4, 1073-Janaury 25, 1974, p. 81, on file at the Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C., p. 105). Made of canvas stuffed with kapok, and painted with enamel, the elements are colored with dull primary hues—red, yellow, blue—reminiscent of the consumer products dowsed in commercial paint, lining storefront windows and aisles. The enamel paint is unmixed and layered directly on the surface of the object, creating a kind of thick and opaque skin. These merchandise objects, known as the Store objects, were first presented in a group show held at Martha Jackson Gallery in the spring of 1961. Stemming from these early merchandise pieces, in the summer of 1962, Oldenburg made his first soft canvas pieces—Floor Cake, Floor Burger, and Floor Cone, all 1962. These larger works are known by Oldenburg as “anti-base,” for they are intended to be hung like a coat, or thrown on the ground, existing off-base from the structural forms we know them to be. The sculptures are intended to interact and become a part of the space in which they are situated. In the present lot, we see a cascade of everyday objects, starting with the price tag, leading to a dangerously falling hamburger, and finally a thick juicy red Popsicle hanging upside down, all against a cream colored background. Each item is drenched in layers of lackluster pigment, and much larger than their actual dimensions. The forms are cartoonish, and coupled with the gargantuan
Claes Oldenburg Floor Burger, 1962. Canvas filled with foam rubber and cardboard boxes, painted with latex and liquitex. 52 in. (132 cm) high; 84 in. (212 cm) diameter. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Purchase, 1967. © 1962 Claes Oldenburg.
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scale and subdued palette, they become parodies of their real forms.
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