Floor Cake, installed in a MoMA gallery
Looking forward, our preservation of Claes Oldenburg’s Floor Cake aims to bring the object to a state that more closely resembles the artist’s original intent. It will also stabilize the condition of the sculpture so that it can both endure a rigorous exhibition schedule and be safe in long-term storage. To develop a successful treatment plan, we considered the sculpture in distinct sections based on its materials:
Last Monday, we talked about the history of Claes Oldenburg’s iconic Floor Cake sculpture, which is currently in MoMA’s Conservation Department for study and treatment. In this post we’ll discuss how the sculpture was made and how Floor Cake’s condition has resulted from natural aging combined with a heavy exhibition schedule.
The filling inside Floor Cake consists of polyurethane foam and cardboard boxes.
For his seminal 1962 triptych Floor Cake, Floor Burger, and Floor Cone, Oldenburg enlisted the help of his first wife, Patti Mucha, who used a portable Singer sewing machine and heavyweight canvas to sew the covers of these large objects. Oldenburg then coated the objects’ surfaces with paint. These works might be described as sewn object-paintings. Floor Cake, for example, consists of five layers of sewn-and-painted canvas, with two chocolate-colored layers alternating with three thinner beige layers, topped by yellow-ocher drops of decorative “icing.”
This is the first post by the Conservation Department at MoMA. We plan to give you a behind-the-scenes look at one of our current projects. In this project, Sculpture and Painting Conservation collaborate on an investigation into one of MoMA’s iconic Pop sculptures.
Claes Oldenburg. Floor Cake. 1962
Claes Oldenburg’s Floor Cake (1962) entered into the Painting and Sculpture Department at MoMA in 1975. Measuring five by nine feet, this popular piece of painted cake has been heavily exhibited in the Museum and across the United States, and has made three transatlantic voyages. The forty-seven-year old sculpture is now in the Conservation Department lab for study and treatment.
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