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How did Claes Oldenburgâs The Store relate to Pop art?
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Pop art
Campbell's Soup Cans, polymer paint on canvas by Andy Warhol, 1962; a selection of five on display in the Museumsquartier, Vienna.
Claes Oldenburgâs The Store (1961) was a pivotal project that bridged the gap between the experimental performance art known as Happenings and the broader Pop art movement.123
The Store functioned as both an installation and a commercial environment; Oldenburg rented an actual storefront and filled it with his own painted plaster constructions of everyday consumer items, such as food, clothing, and jewelry. This work directly aligned with the core tenets of Pop art in several ways:2
- Focus on Consumerism: Like other Pop artists, Oldenburg chose the banal products of daily life as his subject matter, reflecting the commodity-driven values of the postwar era.12
- Blurring Art and Life: By presenting his work in a retail setting, he challenged the traditional boundaries between "high art" and the commercial objects of the machine-industrial age, a goal shared by many in the movement.12
- Evolution of Style: The project served as a precursor to his later, iconic "soft sculptures," which continued to explore the surreal and often disturbing qualities of mundane consumer goods.12
Through The Store, Oldenburg helped establish the brash, objective ethos that characterized American Pop art during the early 1960s.13