SPEAKER 1: We're once
again at the Museum of Modern Art in the
room devoted to Pop Art. And we're standing
in front of, sort of walking around
Claes Oldenburg, Floor Cake from 1962. And both of us are
smiling because it's just a hilarious work of art. SPEAKER 2: What's
really funny to me is that when we get
up close, it really doesn't look like cake at all. It looks like, actually
the giant cherry on top looks like a piece of poop. SPEAKER 1: Yeah, in fact,
the closer you get to it, the less appetizing it becomes. It's this piece of canvas that's
sort of disgusting and filthy. And it's wonderfully not edible. We should just
describe it first. It's gigantic. SPEAKER 2: Eight feet long. SPEAKER 1: A young woman who
was just in the gallery just a moment a go was
walking by and said, I want to lay down
and go to sleep on it. It actually kind of looks
like a gigantic bed. It's preposterous to
have food this large. But it's not just
that it's large because in no way
is it an accurate representation of
a piece of cake. In fact, it's sort of
wonderfully sloppy. And the thing that I find
incredibly endearing about it is the way it's
listing to the right. It's this gigantic,
soft series of pillows. SPEAKER 2: You know
cake is a floppy thing. It's a messy, gooey,
sensual experience. And the squishiness
of this reminds me of digging into the frosting
and having it smooshed down. SPEAKER 1: Right, right. But it's not sensual. I mean it is from a distance-- SPEAKER 2: From a distance. SPEAKER 1: And the
association is. Defiantly. But as you said, when you get
up close to it, it looks dry, and it's fabric, and it's
sort of badly painted fabric. And it's got all these
competing associations that are completely at
odds with each other. SPEAKER 2: It has,
to me, associations with over sweetness,
with saccharine, and American culture burying
itself in sweetness and mass produced foods. SPEAKER 1: It's looking at what
we as a culture will fetishize. This is 1962. It's incredibly early. If you think about where
Pop is at this moment, it's just being really
born in the U.S. Warhol is just creating
his first soup can. Lichtenstein is just at the
early stages of his cartoons. SPEAKER 2: So the pleasures
of American consumer culture, do you think? SPEAKER 1: Absolutely. SPEAKER 2: But it's sort of
undermined, really undermined. SPEAKER 1: Yes. And a tremendous sense
of humor as well. But you're right. There is a kind of
critical aspect here. Not only critical
towards American culture, but about what art
can and should be. There was that great quote,
what Lichtenstein said, by the early '60s after
Abstract Expressionism, you could take a rag that had
been soaked with paint and hang it up on the wall-- SPEAKER 2: Right, and
that would be art. SPEAKER 1: And it would
be considered art. So we just needed
to find something that was still difficult. It also raises questions about
what representation is supposed to be and what
representation is. If you think about
representation as something that traditionally, at least
coming out of the 19th century, is meant to refer to in
some very direct ways. This is really sort
of pushing against. I mean it identifies what it is. But then in so many
ways it's at odds with what it's
meant to represent. It is still maintaining central
identity as slice of cake. But when you look at it
in any way other than sort of that broad identity,
it refuses to be that. SPEAKER 2: What it
also reminds me of is this sort of heroic
tradition of sculpture. You know, it's not this
hard bronze or marble thing. It's this smooshy thing. SPEAKER 1: But not
only that, it's not this idealized human body. It's not this body of a god. SPEAKER 2: Right,
or something heroic. SPEAKER 1: Now we're looking-- SPEAKER 2: It's
the exact opposite. SPEAKER 1: It's hilarious. SPEAKER 2: It's the
everyday, it's the mundane, it's the lowest. SPEAKER 1: So it is
the lowest brought up to this absurd height. [MUSIC PLAYING]