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The
Whitney, the 1966 Breuer building is an old favorite: all gray
granite-clad concrete and glass, strangely angled windows like huge
eyes, flaunting its top-heavy upside-down Babylonian ziggurat form
on staid Madison Avenue. Its plain, white-walled rooms a
perfect setting to display the inventive and sometimes curious
developments in modern American art. Currently on exhibit is the work of Claes
Oldenburg, who was born in Sweden and moved to America with his family at the age
of 7, and later became one of our great Pop artists. In 1976, he began a
creative and amorous partnership with curator and art historian Coosje van Bruggen
(1942-2009). They married in 1977 and together formed a
formidable artistic team, working on many large-scale projects
together. On display at the Whitney are Oldenburg's early
sculptures, drawings, and Happenings films, as well as an
installation called The Music
Room, which showcases his collaborative work with van Bruggen
(on view are a series of drawings and sculptures of musical
instruments, as well as a slide show of
their civic pieces).
There
are, of course, the artist's 'soft sculptures', old standards,
the art that he is famous for - such as his 1963
Giant BLT (Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich) and French
Fries and Ketchup.
Raymond
Saroff, Claes Oldenburg "Happenings": Ray Gun Theater,
1962. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
The
rarer Happenings films were only recently rediscovered. In the 1960s, Oldenburg
created the somewhat hard-to-define category called Happenings,
experimental theatrical events of sorts -- and rare film footage of these
are projected in loops around the walls of the museum's Film
& Video Gallery. Oldenburg used random and found
objects as sets (draped muslin, mirrors, old furniture) and partly
scripted these oddly deconstructed works. These Happenings
were performed with friends throughout the country in abandoned or
empty houses, old stores, or en plein air. The music was
improvised (LPS, the radio, live noises, drums) and performed by Claes or his
friends. Oldenburg described them as a mishmash of "weather,
geography . . . home life, crime, products, food, traffic, heroes,
entertainment..."
Their lack of structure lends them a wild, exciting quality. The films were
shot by different filmmakers and are significant in
that they show Oldenburg's particular interest in working with
other people -- an interest which he took to greater lengths in his later collaborative work
with Coosje van Bruggen.
See:
Claes
Oldenburg, The Whitney Visit:
www.oldenburgvanbruggen.com
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