Curator, Anne Umland: What do you think it would be like to drink from this cup?
For me, I think of caressing the fur, I think of picking up the spoon and the cup. And I feel delight and then, ooh, yuck.
Meret Oppenheim was an artist who made so many different types of work. She had a tremendous sense of humor and was very interested in dreams and in nature. She loved experimenting with all sorts of different materials.
Oppenheim liked to tell a story about how she and her two friends were sitting at an outdoor café in Paris. And someone said, “You can cover anything with fur these days, can't you?” And Oppenheim responded by saying, “Yes! Even this cup and saucer.”
She always said that this was really a whim, it was a joke. It wasn't something that she ever imagined coming to a museum.
If you were gonna transform an everyday object from your life, what would you choose and how would you transform it?