Claes Oldenburg:The Street and The Store at the Museum of Modern Art

Opening on April 14th and up through August 5th at MoMA, Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store promises an excellent opportunity to see some of the seminal early work of one of the great masters of Pop. A nice little slide show from the Huffington Post gives a taste of what is, literally, in store.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/claes-oldenburg-moma-exhibit-the-street-and-the-store_n_2994111.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

Producing in a different vein to Lichtenstein, Rosenquist or Warhol whose irony-laden riffs on packaged goods and magazine gloss were pristinely executed, Oldenburg initially worked sloppier. Humble materials such as cardboard and papier-mache were mixed, matched and molded to create surprisingly arresting objects. These early pieces (The Street, 1960 and The Store 1961-4) are smaller in scale than the gargantuan creations he would later be known for but throughout he gorges – like his Pop counterparts – on the delights of the late '50s and early '60s consumer goods market.

The opening slide from Huffington shows the artist outside the legendary Dwan Gallery in Los Angeles but Art on the Block picks him up during his early years in New York on the Lower East Side.