Director, Glenn Lowry: Assistant Curator, Paulina Pobocha.
Curator, Paulina Pobocha: In 1964, Oldenburg created this work in Paris where he was invited by Ileana Sonnabend to have a show at her gallery. Though he hadn’t been working with the idea of The Store for quite some time, he decided to reprise it for the Paris exhibition. He decided to make food sculptures that were definitively French, not American.
Claes Oldenburg: I arrived in Paris, and we went to a lot of restaurants and I studied the food. And I started to make what basically was a pastry shop.
** Paulina Pobocha**: The interior of Ileana Sonnabend’s gallery then became almost like a de facto epicerie or boucherie. He had meats on display, he had tartines, open-face sandwiches, salmon avec mayonnaise—food that was very particular to this French landscape in which he was exhibiting the work.
Claes Oldenburg: I was very interested by the coincidence that plaster is called Plaster of Paris and so I decided that my material would be plaster bought in Paris. Patty would sew a form that I had designed. And then I would fill it with plaster. While it was drying, I could massage the piece from the outside to change it, or I could just let it dry. And then we’d peel off the skin, which was canvas. I chose to paint it with tempera rather than shiny enamel because I felt that that was more suitable to the Parisian color situation. I mean, things didn't stand out; they were in a haze.