Also dating from the 1960s are examples of Oldenburg's soft and hard, large and small sculptures based on everyday objects, ranging from household fixtures such as toilets, fans, and light switches to foodstuffs and Manhattan maps. A 1992 group of soft sculptures returns to the subject matter of musical instruments, fea turing saxophones, harps, and clarinets, whose precise forms serve as a foil for sculptural statements about defunctionalization and decomposition. One room of the exhibition is devoted to Bedroom Ensemble, Replica II, a full-scale, stylized bedroom suite that replicates the room of the Sidney Janis Gallery where it was originally shown in New York in 1964. Inspired by a Malibu motel room recalled from a visit in 1947, the work was Oldenburg's initiation into the process of professional fabrication. Store equals painting.
Furniture equals sculpture.
The exhibition also includes a series of drawings documenting Oldenburg's designs for proposed colossal monuments, as well as models and drawings documenting later large-scale projects, which, since 1976, have been done in collaboration with van Bruggen. This piece was originally commissioned by graduate architecture students at Yale University and installed there in 1969. With van Bruggen, Oldenburg has created 26 large-scale outdoor projects that have been realized in many urban settings in the United States and Europe. The large-scale projects are related to their sites both formally and conceptually, and are presented in this exhibition through drawings, models, and video documentation. Between 1987 and 1990, van Bruggen and Oldenburg also undertook a series of indoor projects for European venues.