In 1961, Claes Oldenburg embarked on an innovative art project called "The Store" in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. This was not just an art gallery or a workshop but a combination of both, along with being a parody of a typical American store. The space at 107 East 2nd Street was filled with objects one might find in any small store: garments, pies, cakes, burgers, meat cuts, alongside deformed coffee cups and smashed soda cans, all centered around a cash register. Yet, these were not ordinary items; they were art pieces crafted from cheap materials and painted in bright, pure colors. Oldenburg's "The Store" served as both a critique and a celebration of consumer culture, playing with the concepts of art, commodities, and the everyday (The Museum of Modern Art) (TheCollector).
Oldenburg's approach to "The Store" was deeply rooted in pop art's philosophy, directly responding to the dominant Abstract Expressionism of the time. By choosing objects from daily life and replicating them in art, Oldenburg criticized the commodification of art and consumer culture while also engaging in a form of performative consumption. This project illustrated Oldenburg's keen interest in everyday objects, urging viewers to see these familiar items from a new perspective, devoid of their functional contexts and instead as pure forms. "The Store" was a unique blend of art and commerce, embodying the pop art movement's essence by elevating ordinary consumer goods to the status of art, making a statement on the nature of value, art, and commerce (TheCollector).
Furthermore, Oldenburg's "The Store" can be seen as constructing a natural landscape of sorts, a commentary on how all landscapes are, in a sense, artificial and man-made. Just as classical landscape painting evolved to include markers of human activity and the modern landscapes of the Impressionists reflected contemporary life changes, Oldenburg's store was a landscape familiar to Americans of his era. It placed everyday consumer culture in the sterile environment of an art gallery, questioning the relationship between art and the items that populate our daily lives. Through this work, Oldenburg encouraged viewers to reconsider the significance and aesthetic value of mundane objects, elevating them beyond their utilitarian functions to subjects worthy of artistic exploration (TheCollector).
