Claes Oldenburg in 'Fictions of Display'

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
250 South Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012
June 29, 2025–January 4, 2026

In a note written in 1962, artist Claes Oldenburg stated that “theater is the most powerful art form because it is the most involving.” A few lines later he added, “I no longer see the distinction between theater and visual arts very clearly . . . distinctions I suppose are a civilized disease.” Featuring props and sculptures; stages and pedestals; actors, impersonators, and avatars; as well as the ghostly image of the audience itself, Fictions of Display explores intertwined themes of theater, performance, and display in MOCA’s permanent collection, foregrounding strategies and modes of presentation that permeate museum spaces.

At the core of this exhibition are works from Oldenburg’s immersive, performative project The Store (1961–62), in which he made and sold renditions of everyday consumer goods. These works set the tone for a broader exploration of how objects are not only displayed but also staged and circulated. Alongside these well-known objects, Fictions of Display includes a selection of documents from the Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen papers, kindly loaned by the Getty Research Institute.

Fictions of Display also introduces several new acquisitions, as well as works that have never been installed in MOCA’s galleries, such as the painting by groundbreaking Polish theater director Tadeusz Kantor, known for his avant-garde and deeply personal approach to performance, and Catherine Sullivan’s video installation, which merges theater, film, and visual art to examine systems of acting and representation. A live element is subtly woven into the gallery experience: for Tania Pérez Córdova’s Portrait of an Unknown Person Passing By, a performer quietly circulates among visitors at unannounced times, dressed in a garment matching the pattern of a ceramic object on display.