| |
Claes Oldenburg - An Anthology
The Hayward Gallery, London SE1
In August 1996, The Hayward Gallery staged a retrospective of the work of the
American Pop artist Claes Oldenburg. In our design of the exhibition, we
manipulated the different spaces of the gallery to reflect the context and
influences of each stage of the artist's career, thereby subconsciously
providing a backdrop to the exhibits. The first gallery, which featured
the early large-scale soft sculptures of the 1960s were arranged in a very
tall room, metaphoric of exterior spaces in the street grid of Manhattan,
where the artist found his subject matter and materials in the early years.
The areas around the ramp were made to resemble a department store to display the series of works that Oldenburg created for his New York based 'Store'. We used eye-catching exhibits such as the colossal 'Saw' as visual tools to orientate visitors. The tour ended in the grander spaces of the top floor galleries, which were purposefully left undivided to showcase larger works and to reflect the increased command of the artists in his later years.
Completion date: 1996
Client: Hayward Gallery
Photographs: Lorenzo Elbaz
