Claes Oldenburg
Orpheum Sign, 1962
Etching & Aquatint
25 x 20 cm
Edition of 60
And when I think of Claes, I always hear the 1963 song by the Exciters (who hailed from Queens!) called “ Tell Him .” Claes used it in one of...
And when I think of Claes, I always hear the 1963 song by the Exciters (who hailed from Queens!) called “Tell Him.” Claes used it in one of his early films, a work we included when we staged Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store at MoMA in 2013. The song rang through the galleries at predictable intervals, digging itself deep into your head—“Tell him that you’re never gonna leave him/ Tell him that you’re always gonna love him /Tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him right now.” It’s a song about romantic love, but COLOSSAL love, we know, swallows the romantic kind in a single gulp. Claes died earlier today in New York; New York and the world lost a brilliant artist with a mind as unbridled and expansive as I have ever known. I never told him I thought so, but considering who we’re talking about, I’m quite certain he knew.
—Paulina Pobocha, Associate Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, July 18, 2022
—Paulina Pobocha, Associate Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, July 18, 2022
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