Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Soft Shuttlecock, 1995. Canvas, latex paint, expanded polyurethane foam, polyethylene foam, steel, aluminum, rope, wood, duct tape, fiberglass, and reinforced plastic; nine feathers, approximately 26 ft. (7.9 m) long, 6–7 ft. (1.8 – 2.1 m) wide each; nosepiece, approximately 6 × 6 × 3 ft. (1.8 × 1.8 × 0.9 m); overall dimensions variable. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Partial gift, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, New York 95.4488. © Estate of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Photo: Erika Ede, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
The exhibition will bring together historic artworks and recent acquisitions from the Guggenheim New York collection, including Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian and Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s Soft Shuttlecock, alongside one of Yayoi Kusama’s immersive Infinity Mirror Rooms
This June, the Guggenheim New York will unveil Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now, a focused exhibition exploring the museum’s holdings of Pop art and the movement’s enduring influence on artists working around the world today. Drawing on the institution’s history, Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now will illuminate a lesser-known chapter in the museum’s past while foregrounding the significant contributions of both historical and contemporary practices. This exhibition will reflect the spirit and complexities of Pop art and trace how the movement renders the familiar strange, elevates the commercial to the sacred, and transforms the banal into the spectacular, redefining what art could be from the 1960s to the present.
The Guggenheim’s relationship with Pop art dates to the tenure of British curator and critic Lawrence Alloway, curator at the Guggenheim from 1962 to 1966, who was instrumental in introducing the movement to American audiences. Alloway organized several groundbreaking exhibitions at the museum, including Six Painters and the Object (1963), the first museum exhibition of Pop art in New York. Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now will feature an eclectic selection of defining works from the collection by more than 20 artists, including John Chamberlain, Chryssa, Jim Dine, Richard Hamilton, Yayoi Kusama, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Lucas Samaras, and Andy Warhol. These works will be presented alongside recent acquisitions and gifts by contemporary artists such as Maurizio Cattelan, Alex Da Corte, Martine Gutierrez, Lauren Halsey, Lucia Hierro, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim, Yee I-Lann, Liu Shiyuan, and Cara Romero, whose practices both interrogate and build upon the legacies of Pop.
“Many visitors will recognize the iconic imagery and artists associated with Pop, but this exhibition invites them to look again,” said Lauren Hinkson, Curator, Collections. “By placing historic works from the collection alongside recent acquisitions by artists working today, Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now will demonstrate how Pop art, as a strategy, continues to inspire, challenge, and evolve.”
Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now will unfold across four galleries on three floors in the museum’s Tower annex, organized both chronologically and thematically. It will begin in Tower 5 with a presentation of 1960s Pop art, featuring quintessential works by Chryssa, Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol. This gallery will introduce visitors to the emergence of Pop as artists turned to the imagery of advertising, comics, and mass media, redefining the boundaries of fine art in the early 1960s. Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s monumental sculpture Soft Shuttlecock (1995), with its nine feathers spanning 26 feet each, will playfully dominate the space. Created for the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright–designed rotunda for Oldenburg’s 1995 retrospective, Soft Shuttlecock will be on view in New York for the first time in 25 years.
The presentation in Tower 7 will explore the experimental “Happenings” that took place throughout New York in the early 1960s. Combining dance, visual art, music, and poetry, these events ranged from staged dinner parties and illogical ceremonies to fictional storefronts selling absurd objects that critiqued society’s celebration of mass consumption. Drawing on works from the collection inspired by and directly related to these events, the gallery will highlight a key moment of interdisciplinary experimentation in New York’s art scene.
The gallery will be anchored by Yayoi Kusama’s immersive INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM – DANCING LIGHTS THAT FLEW UP TO THE UNIVERSE (2019), a major loan to the exhibition. Kusama’s practice intersects with Pop art, Minimalism, and Happenings while ultimately resisting categorization. Her work demonstrates her singular position as a Japanese woman working within a predominantly male artistic milieu and her influence on contemporaries including Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol. From an early Infinity Net painting in the Guggenheim New York collection to her experiential INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM, this display will illuminate how Kusama’s work continues to shape contemporary art and culture.
In the second stage of the exhibition, opening June 26, the Tower 4 and Thannhauser 4 galleries will feature contemporary artists and recent acquisitions that engage with and offer critical perspectives on the visual forms and language of Pop art. These galleries will include Maurizio Cattelan’s sensational work Comedian (2019), a promised gift to the museum. The work—a ripe banana affixed to the wall with duct tape—has become an icon of contemporary art, sparking international dialogue about art, value, and authorship. Other recent acquisitions will include photographs by Farah Al Qasimi and Liu Shiyuan, sculpture by Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim and Lucia Hierro, a video installation by Alex Da Corte, and textiles by Yee I-Lann, among others. Many of these works entered the collection with the support of affinity groups and acquisition committees, including the Asian Art Circle, the Latin American Circle, the WANASA (West Asia, North Africa, South Asia) Circle, the Photography Council, and the Young Collectors Council. Together, these groups advance the foundation’s mission to promote the understanding and appreciation of modern and contemporary art across diverse geographies, disciplines, timelines, and cultures. Complementing the museum’s notable Pop art holdings, this selection of contemporary works will reflect the movement’s global impact and demonstrate how artists today draw from and challenge its legacy.
This exhibition is organized by Lauren Hinkson, Curator, Collections, with support from Faith Hunter, Curatorial Assistant, and Victoria Horrocks, Curatorial Fellow, Photography.
Support
Major support for Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now is provided by Edlis-Neeson Foundation.
Support is also generously provided by Per J. Skarstedt.
About the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation was established in 1937 and is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of modern and contemporary art through exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications. The international constellation of museums includes the Guggenheim New York; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; the Guggenheim Bilbao; and the future Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. A “temple of spirit” where radical art and architecture meet, the Guggenheim New York is among a group of eight Frank Lloyd Wright structures in the United States designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. To learn more about the Guggenheim New York and the Guggenheim’s activities around the world, visit guggenheim.org.
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