Pastry Case, I 1962

Claes Oldenburg made "Pastry Case, I" using painted plaster, which is not exactly what you'd expect, is it? There's a sense of humor here, but also a real engagement with the everyday, the stuff that surrounds us. What I find so compelling about this work is how Oldenburg transforms the familiar. The textures are so luscious and the colors are so rich that you almost want to reach out and take a bite. But then you remember it’s plaster and that kind of ruins the fantasy! Take a look at that big cake on the middle shelf. It’s not just a cake, it’s an idea of a cake, a memory of a cake, a cartoon of a cake. The way the “frosting” is so thickly applied, it becomes a landscape of its own. It is so, so painterly. He's really thinking about how we see and desire things. It reminds me of Wayne Thiebaud, in the way that the everyday becomes extraordinary through the act of painting. It's a conversation between artists, an ongoing exploration of how we make sense of the world.