THE STORE			After a presentation in 1961 			at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York,			Oldenburg's installation 					THE STORE			was fully realized			in his storefront studio 			on Manhattan's Lower East Side, 			where the artist functioned as both			manufacturer and purveyor of his work.

The objects in THE STORE,	brightly painted plaster wall reliefs and sculptures		executed in different scales, 			were inspired by the food, 				fragments of advertisements, and clothing 			the artist encountered in the shop windows		of his neighborhood.Unlike the slick, mechanical appearance of some Pop art, the objects in THE STORE have a deliberately sensuous, even vulgar character, their rough surfaces splashed and dripped with tempera or commercial enamel paint.After the original installations, Oldenburg continued to make plaster STORE objects until 1963.

"The goods in the stores: clothing, objects of every sort, and the boxes and wrappers, signs and billboards-- for all these radiant commercial articles in my immediate surroundings I have developed a great affection which has made me want to imitate them."

--Oldenburg, 1961

				Exhibition Index				Soft Sculpture				The Street				Entry Page