Wedding Souvenir

Claes Oldenburg's Statement on Wedding Souvenir Souvenir (Claes Oldenburg: The Multiples Store, 1996, pp. 18-19):

'Wedding Souvenir was conceived as a multiple in the form of a single slice of wedding cake made for the wedding of James Elliott and Judith Algar on April 23, 1966. Elliott was then curator of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and lived in an apartment over the merry-go-round on the Santa Monica Pier. The proximity of Beryl's Studio, the souvenir casting shop where two years earlier I had bought the decorative reliefs used in the California Ray Guns, must have had some influence on the conception of the Wedding Souvenir. I made the original in New York and sent it to Beryl's, where several molds were made for mass production of the slides. By the morning of the wedding there were probably about 250 slices; no record survives, nor can anyone remember how many were actually made, and the slices were not numbered. Many, but apparently not all, were stamped "Claes Oldenburg Wedding Souvenir Los Angeles 1966."

The photographer John Bryson, a friend of Jim's who was covering the event for Life magazine, documented the stamping and packing of the slices and, later, their display on paper plates before the wedding reception. According to Elliott, seventy-two of the slices were tinted silver on their tops with spray enamel. Eighteen of these formed a cake, which was given to the Elliotts. Single silver-tinted slices were also given to the forty-five or so members of the wedding party. The unpainted white slices were placed on paper plates for guests to take home. During the party the slices moved around freely and I signed several. The stamp also circulated. I remember worrying that Bob Rauschenberg might become ill after he stamped his tongue and insisted I sign it with a felt pen.

The party was held in a house in Topanga Canyon that had no electric light, but though the cakes remained visible after dusk due to their whiteness, many of the guests failed to collect them. One couple, however, took some eighteen plain white slices plus a spare, which they made into a full cake. The following morning, after the Elliotts had left on their honeymoon, the remaining slices were brought to the Los Angeles county Museum of Art and subsequently accompanied the Elliotts to Jim's next post as director of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut.

Eventually the Elliotts assembled two full cakes out of the remaining plain white slices and sold them. The cake of plain white slices assembled by the couple at the party was also sold. Because of these sales, the Wedding Souvenir is sometimes seen as a sculpture in the form of a cake, but I prefer to insist on its original identity as part of a cake—a multiple in the form of a slice.'

Cast plaster, 1966, from the edition of approximately 200 (there is also a silver edition of approximately 72), commissioned by James Elliott and Judith Algar, overall: 146 x 165 x 640 (5¾ x 6½ x 2½ in.)

Multiples Store 5; Multiples in Retrospect 5