CLAES OLDENBURG: THE SIXTIES

Edited by Achim Hochdorfer with Barbara Schroder. Munich and New York: Prestel, 2012. Museum moderner Kunst Stifung Ludwig Wien

Hard cover with dust jacket, 10.25” x 10.5”, 320 pages, color and black & white photographs.

Condition: A brand new, unread copy with very slight rubbing to dust jacket. No remainder mark.

This comprehensive monograph explores the conceptual complexity and diversity of Claes Oldenburg's early work to reveal this influential artist's extraordinary inventiveness. Accompanying an exhibition of Oldenburg's seminal early work, this publication examines the breadth of his artistic career from the late 1950s to 1970. It features works including the landmark installations The Street and The Store and their accompanying performances; the highly influential spectacular sculptures of everyday objects as well as drawings and preparatory collages for public projects from the 1960s. The book traces the development of Oldenburg's practice as it follows his work up to the Mouse Museum. Also included in the publication is an extensive chronology, alongside notes as well as a variety of installation views that showcase the careful consideration given to modes of presentation. In addition to imagery of his Pop icons, this richly illustrated book contains an extensive selection of drawings, collages, and magazine and newspaper clippings as well as a wealth of previously unpublished notebook pages, preparatory studies, and photographs taken by the artist. This volume probes diverse aspects of his work to offer fresh perspectives on Oldenburg's artistic development and unprecedented insights into the conceptual process of his artistic explorations.

From the dust jacket:

Edited by Achim Hochdorfer with Barbara Schroder. Essays by Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Achim Hochdorfer, Branden W. Joseph, Gregor Stemmrich, and Ann Temkin, with an extensive chronology by Maartje Oldenburg.

This monograph offers the most comprehensive over- view to date of Claes Oldenburg’s groundbreaking work from the 19605-from the graffiti-inspired representations of modern urban life in the Street installation and the expressionistically sculpted consumer goods of The Store to the colossal interpretations of everyday objects in public space. Oldenburg’s sculptures present a living theater of objects that variously materialize as soft and limp, hard and formalist, gigantic, and ghostly. No other modern artist has vivified-and reified- art to the same degree as Oldenburg. In a continual metamorphosis, the object-as-commodity becomes a symbol of the fantasies, desires, and obsessions that are inherent to our daily lives. With its collection of 385 souvenirs, kitsch objects, and studio models, Oldenburg’s Mouse Museum, a walk-in miniature museum that found its final form in the 1970s, reveals a fascinating panorama of not only Oldenburg's artistic approaches but also the modern imagination.

Developed in close collaboration with the artist and including previously unpublished materials, this richly illustrated volume offers insights into the artist’s witty thought processes, while opening up new perspectives on the development of Pop art.

Claes Oldenburg: The Sixties is published on the occasion of the exhibition organized by the Museum moderner Kunst Sdftung Ludwig Wien and touring to the Museum Ludwig, Cologne; the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.