Mouse Museum/Ray Gun Wing
Claes Oldenburg is food-obsessed—it’s obvious—I thought as I strolled through his monumental new show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I even felt a bit hungry when I came across the realistic-to-a-point “Pastry Case I” (1961-62), though looking at the freakish but oddly fascinating “Giant BLT” (1963) squashed all thoughts of an ordinary meal. A clothing-fixation also seemed unmistakable, his sculpture “Braselette” (1961) just one of the many garments on display. I was right and wrong. Oldenburg was attracted to this subject matter, but primarily in the context of the consumer culture of the early-1960’s, a period when the New York art world, like the city itself, was in flux.
