Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store

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Samaras in Oldenburg’s Circus: Ironworks/Fotodeath, 1961. Photo: © Robert R. McElroy/Licensed by VAGA, New York; © Claes Oldenburg/Courtesy of Oldenburg van Bruggen Studio.

Claes Oldenburg's Performances

Claes Oldenburg's Performances
Audio courtesy of Acoustiguide

Director, Glenn Lowry: In conjunction with The Street and The Store, Oldenburg mounted performances featuring both him and his friends.

Artist Claes, Oldenburg: I had a wonderful actor—really an artist—named Lucas Samaras, who was in all my performances. He was truly an imaginative creature when you put him into a theatrical situation. Red Grooms, for example, was extremely theatrical, and he gathered about himself very theatrical assistants. And Jim Dine certainly was theatrical. He loved to dress up and pour paint on his head and so on. So that was a direction at the time. And some of the performances were extraordinarily messy and weird.

In my case, I always had scripts. But they would develop, when you put the people together and started to work with them. And somebody would come on and do something, and you’d say, ‘well I've got to have that in.’