Claes Oldenburg 1961

"I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.
I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art give the chance of having a starting point of zero.
I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap & still comes out on top.
I am for an art that imitates the human,. that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.
I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap painting signs or hallways.
I am for art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.
I am for art that spills out of an old man's purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.
I am for the art out of a doggy's mouth, falling five stories from the roof.
I am for the art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper.
I am for the art that is put on and taken off, like pants, which develops holes, likes socks, which is eaten, like a piece of pie or abandoned with great contempt, like a piece of shit."


originally from "I am for an art. . . " Environments, Situations, Spaces (New York, Martha Jackson Galleru 1961)
from The Artist's Joke ed. by Jennifer Higgue, MIT Press, 2007.