Claes Oldenburg’s Store Days (1967)

From the library of artist Peter Snow and with his ownership signature on front paste-down. Includes the original tipped-in envelope containing the business card/announcement issued for the grand opening of Claes Oldenburg’s The Store.

STORE DAYS is the remainings of the most significant monument of early 60’s New York art—the events, theories, works and situations surrounding Claes Oldenburg’s Store, which was on the one hand a real place where real sales were made, and on the other a set of ideas whose reverberations are still being felt.

The Store even had a theatrical dimension. After New Year’s 1962, it was converted to the Ray Gun Theater. Each weekend, for ten weeks, four performances were given with a volunteer cast, of original wordless “plays”—a sort of cycle of rebirth. In Oldenburg’s words: “I was able to believe that if we did not continue and do our job well, Spring simply wouldn’t come that year.”

STORE DAYS is a selection by the artist, with the aid of Emmett Williams, of texts, graphic materials and photos from 1961–62. The documents are presented as directly as possible, since this is no catalogue but the evocation of a seminal moment.

Condition: cream cloth boards a little tanned to extremities with some light spotting to front and rear panel. Unclipped dust-wrapper a little worn to to extremities with a half inch closed-tear to top left corner of its rear panel.