Claes Oldenburg in the Shadow of Marxism "The Mouse Museum": An Act Against the Bourgeoisie

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyse Claes Oldenburg's Mouse Museum through the Marxist context and to add a new dimension to the work. The artist constructed his work in the highly politicised environment of street demonstrations and student protests in 1970s America. In this context, it has been observed that the artist's Mouse Museum differs from his other works. Various qualitative research methods were used in the study for a deeper understanding of the subject. As a result of the observations, it is possible to say that the work contains a protest approach. Both the Mickey Mouse shape on the ground plan and the collection inside the work question the political and social roles of the museum. The artist creates a stereotype of American society in his collection and in fact draws a portrait of the bourgeois economy of the period. These indicators strengthen the Marxist criticism. With the archaeology of the period in which it is located, the Mouse Museum actually shows a cultural production that has been destroyed and may never exist. Therefore, the Mouse Museum is not a sketch of a resistance, it is the museum of a community doomed to its fate, overshadowed by the enriching capital. Moreover, in the context of Marxism, the relationship of the artefact with the exhibited space resembles the highest stage of capitalism: the struggle between monopoly capital and the proletariat. It does not seem possible for the artefact to be independent from the structure in order to preserve its existence. There is a biased struggle here. The artwork's architectural articulation to the existing existence of the museum/gallery space signifies the struggle of a cultural class for survival. In this context, the Mickey Mouse narrative turns into a bourgeois mouse.