I learned today that legendary sculptor, Claes Oldenburg, famous for his irreverence, his ability to subvert the mundane and elevate it, is an alumni of my high school. So is Nancy Reagan, by the way–I find the timing, like many moments in my life terribly, conveniently, coincidental.

I try to spend time each month wandering around New York's gallery neighborhoods to remain engaged with the goings on within, to scout for shows and talents that surprise me, to find artwork that speaks. Typically, I do not set an itinerary, I have no set plans, no specific places to be, I often happen on things, which is honestly the way I like to do things best.

Last week I happened upon Claes Oldenburg's Shelf Life at Pace Gallery. . . I know, I know, blockbuster artist, blockbuster gallery, how can one happen upon it, but I tend to keep my distance from blockbusters because I find that they offer little in the way of surprise. And I was surprised–surprised by how much I enjoyed the show and by the nostalgia that Oldenburg's shelf-sized assemblages awoke within me.

Growing up in Chicago I was fortunate to have had access to some of the world's foremost cultural institutions; chief among them the Art Institute of Chicago, which I insisted on visiting not because of the quality of the artwork therein, nor the importance of their private collection, but because of the Thorne Miniature Rooms. Hidden away by the educational resources room and the bathrooms is a collection of 68 miniature rooms built and decorated to represent a series of different interiors of homes from the Western world. 

The Thorne rooms kept me enthralled, no matter how many times I had been to see them, no matter how many minutes or hours I spent in their presence. I admit they still do today. I can recall pressing my nose to the glass behind which they were displayed to try and see into corners and behind doors, I could spend an entire day imagining the worlds contained within those tiny rooms–many of which are scarcely bigger than a foot in a half in any direction. 

I felt twinges of that old curiosity walking through Oldenburg's Shelf Life. I delighted in the cameos made by some of his most famous piece–a mini version of his iconic Floor Burger, a minute and sketched version of the apple core sculpture that lives at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art, a palm-sized, monochrome homage to the slice of blueberry pie that once sat on New York's Metropolitan Museum's roof. I was thrilled by their presence, a direct reference to the power of nostalgia as a tool to reach out and touch viewers through the vehicle of personal experience. Not unlike a paintbrush, or a blob of clay, nostalgia is a media unto itself that is powerful enough to connect viewers of all hearts and minds. It sounds crazy; how does a piece of crumpled up paper made to resemble a hamburger make one feel nostalgic for childhood? I answer that it does not, not the object itself, not the paper, not the hamburger, no, but the unit as a whole. Oldenburg's venture into the small-scale, in opposition to his career-long exploration of the monumental, could be too referential to his past work to stand on its own. I believe however, that that is where Oldenburg's "genius" lies, in taking that chance, and in speaking to my 8 year old self, using the smallest of gestures.