Oldenburg turns 85 years old!
Today. Yesterday. This week. Last week. Honestly somehow, over a week went by since beginning this post. This happens I suppose… getting lost for weeks in 65 years of one artist’s work, when you’re trying to write about them in time for their 85th birthday. There is always much to learn about a drawing or a sculpture or a film, and then that much more to discover about the artist who saw them through. Like where they studied, who they showed with, museums that collect their work, and what they eat for breakfast. All of these investigations interest me greatly, but the main purpose of this post was to make it known that on January 28th, artist Claes Oldenburg celebrated his 85th birthday! And also to tell you all about the time we proposed to transform the Terrace 5 café at MOMA in New York into a Claes Oldenburg Café, where nearly everything (aside from a giant pair of sneakers and an over-sized dress shirt) in his 6th floor exhibition would be offered on the cafe’s menu to eat- for real! But if there were one single reason for this post, it would be to share this image.
This is a photo taken by Dennis Hopper of Claes Oldenburg standing amidst an edition of wedding cake slices he made as a wedding souvenir for a curator’s wedding in 1966 and I wish I had been there.
So now that I have your attention, I may as well tell you a bit about my Oldenburg findings and what we had planned for a cafe in his honor. Last spring, Oldenburg was the subject of two shows at MOMA in New York. One show, Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store was installed on the sixth floor and the other, “Claes Oldenburg: Mouse Museum/Ray Gun Wing” in the second floor atrium. We had the great opportunity to spend some time visiting the exhibitions last May with MOMA Cafe’s Executive Chef, Lynn Bound and Pastry Chef, Sandra Mannino in efforts to bake up a bi-coastal collaboration of sorts.
There were signs clearly stating “No Photography Please” throughout this exhibition, but I needed the evidence, so I had Tess cover me with her trench coat for this one. There is something so magic about chefs perusing the galleries in their coats, don’t you think?
Claes Oldenburg. Pastry Case, I. 1961–62. Painted plaster sculptures on ceramic plates, metal platter, and cups in glass-and-metal case. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection. © 2012 Claes Oldenburg
Oldenburg makes sculpture into a celebration of food, which made it so much fun for us to imagine museum goers actually eating them at the Terrace 5 cafe. “My art is made for human beings, and it’s important that people enjoy the experience of seeing it,"he says. So we thought why not take it to the next level (all dreams of eating a slice of cake the size of a small car, aside) and have people enjoy the experience of eating it too.
We made these sketches for a menu mock-up for the proposed Claes Oldenburg Cafe at MOMA last spring.
Aside from spending good amounts of time in the galleries, with our noses up to the pastry cases, we also had to put in some hours on-site at the Terrace 5 cafe, brainstorming over sundaes made with gelato from Laboratorio del Gelato.
Here we are at MOMA’s Terrace 5, in good company (Tess Wilson, Chef Lynn Bound, Caitlin Freeman, Manager Tracy Wilson and pastry chef Sandra Mannino), with sundaes in hand and the Ellsworth Kelly catalog on the table (stay tuned for details on what we cooked up for that show too soon!)
Throughout his 85 years, Claes Oldenburg has produced an immense body of work that would make anyone’s mouth water and often laugh, which is something that doesn’t happen all the time in art and is so refreshing when it does. But from the 1970’s onward, Oldenburg often collaborated with his wife, artist Coosje van Bruggen and together they focused on the large scale sculptures. You might have come across a couple of these in your own city or travels. And next time you do, I urge you celebrate this man and all of his years, whether or not it’s his birthday.
Claes Oldenburg’s “Cupid’s Span” in Rincon Park, San Francisco.
Claes Oldenburg’s “Corridor Pin, Blue” in the de Young’s sculpture garden.
