Three Conversations in 1985: Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Robert Morris

Abstract

Buchloh: Did you know Duchamp? Did you have any exchange with him at all? Oldenburg: I had some interesting encounters with him, but not long talks or anything. In Pasadena, in 1963, was really the first time I saw the work, I mean really saw the work, except for rumors, and it was a very exciting show. Then he made himself available after the show to talk to people and sign things and so on. And he used to come, before that, to performances. Buchloh: Yes, he does actually mention this, that he sometimes went to Happenings. Oldenburg: He came to at least three performances that I had done. I remember one performance in 1965 which took place in a movie theater where the performance was in the seats and the audience had to stand. Duchamp asked if he could sit down because he was too tired to stand, so he became the only person in the audience sitting in the performance. Another performance, in 1962 in The Store, ended with performers in burlap bags, crawling out of the bags, expiring at the feet of the audience. Buchloh: That was one of your performances? Oldenburg: Yes. I found that I was expiring at his feet. So there were contacts, but never anything more than a cordial hello if I met him at a party, and so forth. I never played chess with him. Buchloh: Also, if, as you say, in the early sixties the major points of departure in your own work were already clearly defined ... Oldenburg: Yes, he was a historical figure. Buchloh: What about iconography? That is obviously an art-historical problem; you are, as I see it, the first sculptor after Duchamp who uses a kind of iconography that is completely alien to all preceding sculpture, which is the industrially produced, ready-made object. Oldenburg: Well, I saw some of Duchamp's work at Yale when I was an undergradu-